My Lonely
by Nosta-Logic
Summary: Darth Maul fic. slight AU. A torture story set after TPM with a whole lot of OC's. (IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT.)
1. Default Chapter

A/N: Hm... well, can't say I was completely sane when I wrote this. Maybe a lil' tweaked in the head. At any rate, if ya don't like our favorite Sith Lord, Darth Maul, then don't read it. That simple. If you can't handle implied torture, and bottomless angst, then don't read it. That simple. Yeah, I know I'm messed up, but who's to say?  
  
Once more, this is NOT SLASH!!!  
  
Get that, you homosexual freaks? NOT SLASH!!!  
  
Man/ um... Alien rape, but NOT SLASH!!!  
  
Anyways, on with the story!  
  
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"Whatever god's out there has most definitely abandoned me. Left me for dead." He thought wryly. Nobody left in the whole damned universe to care about some painted Sith. However, he felt...... humbled talking to his God again; or was it guilt?  
  
Maul looked up, meeting with the dead, tortured faces of others before him. Other innocents, and smugglers interrogated into madness, lower than he, for he was their emperor's very apprentice. His...... bodyguard....... as the pitiful humans would say. But nigh was a warrior of his stature ever considered a bodyguard to anyone. He served no one. At least not anymore.  
  
Allowing the force to control his hungered body, and relive him of what pain it could, he laid back against the begrimed metal walls of this god-forsaken ship. Tried a great many times had he to poke into the minds of his captors, and at least know where they were taking him, and his departed brethren. However, it was almost as if they had created a barrier. A wall to block out his psychic powress. He DID know, however, that their crew consisted of three males, and a female captain. Perhaps taking him as a slave prisoner to Tatooine?  
  
Maul could not help but utter a forced chortle. Any mortal being would have made a vile decision to think they could break HIM into slavery. It had been tried a great many times, every last one ceased with an indigenous slaughter. Slaughter of they who imagined even slightly that they could infract a Sith Lord as if a pathetically weak Brascha kit.  
  
The airtight doorway to his rank prison vented with a calm whoosh. How ironic that an inanimate object such as a door could be so collected in the face of space pirates. Maul retained his lulled and dignified composure, even against the heathens who dared destroy his home, and so unceremoniously throw him into their nasty ship. Well...... at least better he than the emperor.  
  
From the unpolished chrome threshold, there stepped a bounty hunter (Male or female, he did not know which), who merely stared at the Demonic Sith for a long while. It was unclear whether it was even looking at him from the one-way visor.  
  
"Get up." It finally said.  
  
Darth Maul only stared from under the shadow of his cowl, auld demonisque eyes staring frighteningly into the criminal's unseen ones. When, after two long minutes, he did not move, the bounty hunter unsheathed a long blaster rifle. One of the newer models, it gleamed unnaturally against the dingy sacraments of this...... hell.  
  
"I said stand up......." He growled, tapping the trigger with equally tapping patience. Knowing he could stall no longer, the demon forced himself onto carefully toned legs, and made sure that his hosts did not notice the amber eyes glowing contemptuously beneath their shadowy embrace. The bounty hunter slowly moved forward, and paced around the creature three times as if a man goading over his unmarked prey.  
  
Maul let a deep snarl from the bowels of his stomach, and though he knew his host could not see it; curled his black lip upward to reveal one long, deadly fang. He did not enjoy being looked over as if some pet, and was more than willing to show his opinions outwardly.  
  
The bounty hunter seemed to perfectly well understand his demise, and held the nose of the pistol to his prisoner's head.  
  
"Walk." He said simply, and nudged the Sith forward. Maul did as he was told, although he quite impressively feigned a wound to his leg, and limped slowly toward the helm of the ship to buy more time. By whatever God there was in this universe, he prayed that his emperor and the others had escaped to Sillacause, outside of republic lines.  
  
The airtight doors greeted them with a soft whoosh. Mr. Bounty Hunter lifted his hand to shove his prisoner forward, and Maul saw it coming through his force-felt vision. Concentrating, he attempted to use that same power to knock the stupid creature's embodiment across the galaxy, but the Sith had forgotten about his bracers, and his host's hands drove into his muscular shoulders hard.  
  
Staggering slightly, the acting warrior fumbled into a room far more polished than any other part of the ship. Before him was the cockpit, and a huge window that spanned the entire deck. Stars shone brightly against the black hue of cold sky, their ethereal presences tapering Darth Maul's anger into slow patience. He looked up, and three pairs of wicked, unfeeling eyes looked back.  
  
First of them, a male Kamino, who's skin was a violet tint of blue from obvious lack of water. On his utility belt were two grappling hooks, and a barbaric looking whip. Standing to his right was a young woman (human most likely) who wore a strangely archaic garb. On her back, she carried a sword, and her eyes were cruel as they stared into the cloak of the Sith Lord. Last, standing to the Kamino's left, was a strange alien indeed. One that hardly ever appeased its presence in textbooks or data files. Its skin was a strangely murky silver, and its eyes wedged against a reptilian head. A forked tongue flicked seamlessly from a space between his lips, and Maul could not help but think that the Rektilos was tasting him.  
"Keesha, contact her highness, and scan the atmosphere for any unwelcome guests." The Kamino ordered justly.  
  
"Yes sir." The woman answered, and set to work on the controls. An acrid feeling slowly crept up the Sith's diaphragm, and he watched the holo piece sprang into misty life. Upon the obsidian base, there stood the hazy form of a thin, middle-aged woman, who wore the robes of a high chancellor. Black robes.  
  
When her form finally disclosed, and she stared questioningly at the ship's captain, the bounty hunter pushed Maul forward into her limited line of view. Her victorious smile turned suddenly into a frown as she noticed his hood was still guarding the vision of his horrid face.  
  
"By the gods, take his damn hood off!" She ordered, "I want to look upon the face of my sweet revenge....." Her voice was hollowed by the artificial means of communication, and the Sith suddenly began to feel very nauseous. They wanted his emperor. And they were going to get him.  
  
Roughly, the bounty hunter reached down, and forced the cowl of their prisoner's hood back to reveal their captured soul. Not Darth Sidious, but Darth Maul. His multi-colored face contorted into a triumphant sneer, and his demon eyes gleamed with malice.  
  
"Boo."  
  
For a moment, the female chancellor said nothing. Her mouth widened in complete shock, and her own eyes went as wide as Jabba the Hutt's ass. Then, she began to seethe in volcanic rage. Her wrinkled jaw clenched, and her face went beet red.  
  
"IDIOTS!!!" She screamed, and the entire crew jumped, "FOOLS!!! YOU GOT HIS DAMNED APPRENTICE!!! I SHOULD HAVE ALL OF YOU BEHEADED FOR THIS!!!" For a little old lady, she sure could get a point across.  
  
Instinctively, the enigmatic bounty hunter brought his pistol to the Sith's head, and prepared to fire. This only made the woman more angry.  
  
"NO!!! DON'T KILL HIM! HE KNOWS WHERE THE EMPEROR IS!!!" She cried, and the pistol lowered discreetly from Darth Maul's skull. He turned slightly, and showed off his deadly fangs to the silent Bounty Hunter.  
  
"Captain Ulrick, I want no more mistakes..." The chancellor began to the Kamino, "Bind him tightly, and bring him to me. Remember, he's a Sith... don't take any chances..." And the hologram went back to nothing.  
  
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So, tell me. Like it? Hate it? I know it doesn't seem like it should be R now, but just wait for the later chappies. Truthfully I tell ya, at first there was no way I was gonna write this, but the plot bunny kept screaming at me to do it. Constructed flames, please. I know my writing is crap, but I don't appreciate flamers.  
  
-_______-;;;; woe is me.... 


	2. My Lost

A/N: Sorry. I completely forgot in my haste to run from the plot bunnies to tell you all that this is a slight AU. Yes, as you may have already guessed, Darth Maul IS alive, and now a POW. Hehe... truly am I evil. In this story, there will be MAJOR angst, and torture. DO NOT take the rating for granted- yet. There is going to be blood, broken bones and nasty stuff like lemons, and ONE-SIDED YAOI.(That means homosexual man/man things) I also forgot to put a disclaimer on the first chappie, so here it is. *Ahem*  
  
I do not, under any circumstances, own ANY of the characters issued in this story but my own. I have not created this story to rake in some serious dough, nor will I probably ever in my pathetic life.  
  
ON WITH THE CHAPPIE!!!  
  
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The planet was dark, but in such a way that the Sith could not control under even the most powerful wave of the force, a nauseous shadow that neither comforted, nor provoked him. It seemed....... almost........ fake.  
  
However, despite this fleeting provocation, he continued to walk, bound in the most powerful of mind-befuddling shackles. The rektilos held a blaster against his head, and a dagger tinged with poison against his back. Of course, Maul was sure that the annoying lizard had hardly wanted him to know about that minor detail, but the demonic creature's nose had hardly lied to him before. It would not, now.  
  
Something large, looming, and black poised in the distance as if a crouching giant waiting to gobble up the vicinity of dwellers on this slightly familiar planet. Yes, there were citizens. Citizens of every race imaginable, yet only the dominant peoples seemed to irk a long-forgotten facet in the Sith's memory. They acted like men, talked like men, and dressed like....... well....... something. But their physical appearance seemed like that of a feline. Large, slitted green eyes watched as the space pirates walked their prisoner like a trophy down the stone streets, and triangular ears flicked restlessly back and forth for any sort of explanation of who this dark being was.  
  
That large giant in the distance, as he soon found out, was actually a dwelling. A castle to be exact; yet another object that irked his memory. Darth Maul closed his eyes, and shook his head slightly, trying to keep these annoying thoughts from his mind. Now he had to focus on the task at hand. With the force out of reach, and his lightsaber in the hands of a wookie guard beside him, he had to play along with these people's games. At least until they set him free for that one moment...  
  
"By the Queen Shegorad's orders, we bring her the emperor Sidious, lord of all dark jedi." Ulrick proclaimed, and showed the two castle securities a parchment. The first, clad in a dull silver armor, inspected the paper carefully, and nodded after a moment of hesitation. The two balled up their fists, and slammed them against their chests, standing straight so that the company could make a hasty entrance to the strange castle.  
  
"Mother, I grow quite impatient. When will Ulrick be here with the pest?" A teenager drawled in agitation. His hair was black, just like his mother's; his eyes were black, just like his mother's; and his heart was as deep a crevice as the Mariana's Trench. Just like mommy's. However, one thing that Prince Raphael had nothing of similarity to his mother of was the snobbish, almost immature attitude of being a spoilt royalty. He got what he wanted- when he wanted it.  
  
Queen Shegorad sighed, and tapped her wrinkled fingers on the beautifully carved mahogany armrest of her throne. "Soon, lovey. Very soon. Just be patient." She answered her son.  
  
As if it were a suppressed case of divine intervention, one of the strange cat-people relative to this planet burst through the doors, and knelt low before his queen prior to whispering a statement in her ear. Shegorad listened intently, and a crookedly toothed smile graced her careworn face.  
  
"Of course you can send them in, bantha!" She cried, "Open the doors!"  
  
The cat-man bowed low, and ran back towards the palace entrance, helping others on the outside to pull the huge wooden structure in. Raphael, with impatience proving too much, stood up, and crossed his arms.  
  
"Hurry up, you little weasels! I grow tired of waiting!" He snarled. The cat-people tensed, and quickened their pace hurriedly until the great mass of wood and gold released forward, and the space pirates entered with their cargo in hand. To the prince's sudden displeasure, he saw that this was most definitely NOT Sidious, but a......  
  
"Mother!!!" He practically screamed, and nearly fell against his throne. Shegorad seemed just as surprised, and she stood up quickly.  
  
Despite his pleasure at seeing them so uncomfortable, Darth Maul was confused. What was wrong with him? He watched as the Queen he had seen earlier in another hologram stood, and alien who seemed to be her son joined her.  
  
"You......" She whispered, with eyes as wide as the chancellor-woman's, "It is not possible....... y-you died...... with all the rest......"  
  
Maul stared at them, even more confused now. Something was seriously wrong. Even the space pirates looked incredulously at their queen, who was shaking slightly in the knees. Raphael seemed to notice the scattered waves of disarray that flowed from his emotional state of mind, and he gawked.  
  
"M-Mother..... he truly does not know...... he does not know about his own race! Kalaskein knows not about his own race!"  
  
At that name, the rektilos that had remained so distant as he guarded the Sith, drew in a sharp breath of air, and suddenly fell to his knees before his own prisoner.  
  
"Den Ewu Jedi!" It cried raspily. Shegorad noticed his words, and became suddenly very perturbed. "SHUT UP!!!" She screamed, "If noble Quinya has forgotten, then so it shall remain! Kalaskein is no more! Take him to solitary confinement, now!"  
  
Darth Maul, confused, and slightly shaken, did not even try to struggle as they dragged him away once more; down deep into the darker regions of the black castle. Quinya...... it struck a major gold mine in his memory bank, but the name Kalaskein made his heart stop. Why? God knew. Now perhaps alone, he could meditate on this; but oh how wrong one Sith could have been that day on the planet Gattaca.  
  
Oh how wrong.  
  
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A/N: Shlump! Whee! I know that this is confusing beyond all natural reason, but it's supposed to be. Next chapter will really delve on the R rating, but I'm making it PG 13 until that time. Oh yeah, that yaoi I mentioned at the top? Well, it ain't Darth Maul's yaoi. In my personal opinion, Gayness is really, really sick. But that's just me. And Gattaca is a movie, I just wanted to make it into a planet. Okay! Bye-Bye! 


	3. My Lonely

A/N: Hello again, peeps! This is the slightly disturbed soon-to-be author, Nosta-Logic! Here wesa havin da chapta three, which wilsa delvin on a lot of torture, ya! Major Darth Maul torture, ya! I have changed the story to R because of my sick, and extremely twisted ways of VERY explicit torment, and agony. So, if you've got a weak constitution, PLEASE LEAVE NOW.  
  
***WARNING*** YAOI AND LEMON!!!! I WILL MARK THE SPACE WHERE NOBODY UNDER 17 SHOULD READ WITH STARS!!!  
  
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JUST LIKE THAT, OKAY??? I'LL SAY IT AGAIN:  
  
******DO NOT READ UNDER THIS LINE IF YOU AREN'T 17***********************  
  
Okay! We're cool, then! On with the chappie!  
  
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His haunting auld eyes remained closed in deep meditation for the next twenty-four hours. Serene, and accepting, no mere mortal being could have ever known by his face that he was one of the most notorious assassins to ever grace the universe's presence. A Sith. A warrior. The dark knight. Maul could feel the force buzzing around him like a swarm of angry bees, wanting him to take them, use his anger for them. Control the bees, and sting the wenches who threatened to get in his way. However, because of the strange restraints locked tightly around his wrists, the bees remained out of reach.  
  
By the lack of guards, and flimsy security, Maul inferred that Raphael had wanted him to feel alone, and forgotten. Good luck trying. Sidious had placed his only apprentice on the secluded planet of Dagobah for a whole damned month; left him stranded alone, and to build his own shelters. Get his own food. It hadn't bothered the Sith Lord, for he had been alone his whole forsaken life. His master cared nothing of him but as a valuable ally, trained to be a drone to his commands, and made to kill every Jedi in his path. Master an apprentice were merely that: Master and apprentice. Nothing more. Nothing less.  
  
He opened his malicious eyes once more, and his body released from its relaxed, meditative state to enter the tense, and always-on-guard state. There were voices. Darth Maul watched, devoid of any emotion, as four of the native cat-species guards unlocked his pristine chrome cell, and bound his neck with a titanium shackle. Some carried guns, others carried vibro- blasters. They were obviously afraid, weak-minded individuals who would have no hope whatsoever at resisting a mind-trick. Even without the force, their prisoner could sense that. But that was the problem. Even without the force......  
  
Quickly, they led him to the throne room where Queen Shegorad sat alone upon her mahogany commode. She watched in a royal nothingness as they dragged their heavily cicatrice captive towards her feet, but also upon his. She grimaced smugly, knowing that he would have to be broken from this, and that she would leave to her son.  
  
The cat-people stopped about twenty feet from the throne, and fell to their knees in retribution. Maul stared like an empty shell, refusing to bow along with them. 'Ere to none I shall accede but you, Lord Sidious.' The vow he had made before the Dark Emperor over ten years ago still ran through his forcefelt mind, and that vow was not one to be interrupted. 'Nay under the threat of torture, nor death shalt I smite this promise to thee, my Emperor.'  
  
"You dishonor yourself, prisoner, by defying the sacred law of Khajiit." Shegorad spat out the word prisoner like she was spitting on Maul. He, however, only continued to stare silently past her. Out into space, where he was so at home.  
  
'And shalt I keep this vow to thee until released by your mouth,'  
  
The queen stood slowly upon her worn knees, and snapped her knotted old fingers. Arthritis was clearly ran through her veins. A cat-man stood, and brought from his belt a primitive weapon, indeed. A whip. He held it in front of the Sith, and raised it, as if trying to intimidate him. "Bow down to your new ruler, slime, or I will make you bow." Shegorad hissed  
  
'Or taken...... by death.'  
  
Maul continued to gaze defiantly past her, as if he did not even notice the deranged weapon of torture before him, interwoven with nails, and shards of broken glass. His eyes were distant, and calm.  
  
"One......" The queen began. Her guard with the whip tightened his hand around the hilt, and the Sith still did not bow.  
  
"Two......" She held up her knotty fingers, showing him that he only had one second left to choose between pain, or humiliation. The cat lifted his weapon high.  
  
"....... Three."  
  
For the next minute-and-a-half, Lord Darth Maul forced his mind into a secluded dark corner, where he was safe for the time being. Like a controlled coma, there was only a slight pressure as the Khajiit forced his whip down hard into his prisoner's flesh. The glass tore, and the nails ripped. It made way through the cloth of his protective cloak, and pulled layers of skin from its place to reveal tender muscle underneath. In the echoing abyss of his mind, Maul could hear his flesh tearing like the sound of fabric when he became angry. Blood kerplunked, and stained the floor at his feet, but he only closed his eyes in the dark corner, and waited for it to be over. The whip made a blow at his chest, and a shard of glass touched one of his ribs as it pulled a long strip of flesh along with it.  
  
Shegorad watched in apprehensive displeasure as each blow only made the Sith stronger. No prisoner of hers had ever remained on their feet for this long, and she was growing ever-the-more agitated t his stubborn will. Probably taught by that ruffian, Sidious. Growling in her ira, she managed to lift her hand, and the guard stopped shy of another blow.  
  
"Enough, Gantu......" She began sullenly, "Take him back to solitary confinement, and let my son do as he wishes with him."  
  
The Khajiit nodded, just as disappointed as his queen. He obviously wanted very badly to break, and humiliate the Sith as much as she did, but there would be another prisoner at another time for that. Growling slightly, he forced Maul around, and bade him march back.  
  
Only when the heavy iron door of his cubicle shut, and the overbearing Khajiiti left did the trapped Sith allow himself from the coma he had induced upon his being. Immediately, his body gave out, and fell from the loss of blood, but Maul managed to drag himself on shaking arms toward the three-by-five metal cot that was his bed. No sheets to wrap his bleeding wounds with, and only the mangled cloak to warm his shivering body. He found an unmarked strip of cloth, and tore it off, wrapping it around the worst injury he had, or at least he wished he could wrap it.  
  
His pride.  
  
Instead, it was used on a particularly long excursion that graced his shoulder. Beneath the skin, he could see pink muscle throbbing in protest at being revealed to the world, and he hissed slightly in pain as the pressure from the material stung badly on the tender area. Forcing his legs into a crossed position, Maul let down his defenses, and began to meditate as he had done all last night. But with a body that throbbed constantly, it was difficult to concentrate, and his mind wandered......  
  
"This had better not happen again, apprentice...... It will be the only time I will ever come looking for your pitiful body...... Much less heal you. I can't waste precious time watching over you like a mother."  
  
"Yes, master. Forgive me...... I deserve to die at the hands of a Jedi......"  
  
"You are dismissed, apprentice. Get out of my sight......"  
  
Controlledmind controlledmind CONTROL YOUR MIND!!! Maul screamed at himself. He jumped slightly at his own inner voice, and therein scolded his own being even more. Great...... Not even two days in this Hell, and he was already becoming a schizophrenic. His open wounds throbbed, giving a flimsy attempt at healing quickly without the force. Kalaskein, the Quinya...... it was too much.  
  
"No...... Don't let these corrupted individual's lies misdirect your mind! There is no Kalaskein...... no Quinya...... it is all only a prevarication of their own making....." It made him feel a little better, but there was still the fact of his emperor. How he wished with every fiber of his being that he could use the force to contact his master, and at least know if he was alive. Darth Maul sighed inwardly, knowing patience was his only ally in this fight. They would interrogate, and probably torture him for their damned information, but would he give it to them?  
  
Hell no.  
  
He smiled a grim smile, baring once more his fierce canines. The pain would only make him stronger. He relished it; he cherished it. That feeling was just a mortal feeling. A weakness, so desperately leaving the body.  
  
His stomach growled. Maul looked down at himself, and realized with a snort that he had not eaten for five days. It was taking a toll on his already- healing body, and he cursed outwardly for this inane helplessness. He would need to eat soon, or collapse the moment they brought him out again.  
  
"Hello, wench."  
  
The Sith looked up quickly, hiding his surprise a bit too late. Raphael stood outside of the accursed restraints that held his prisoner, smiling a smile that hardly made do with politeness. He was wearing a beautifully extravagant robe, and ( much to suit his taste) it was black.  
  
"I ask you one question, bantha." He began with a drawling accent, "If you answer, it will save you much humiliation, and suffering. Suffering that....." He paused to smile, "I'm sure not even your beloved emperor would want to feel......" He smiled again, but now there was a glint in his malefic eyes. Maul stared, and his mind slowly began to lose control. He panicked. There had been a glint like that before, and he knew it all-too- well.  
  
Lust.  
  
Without waiting, Raphael opened the cell, and stepped in, deprived of any guards to watch over him. The Sith would have never admitted it to anyone, but the prince of Gattaca had the advantage over him. He looked to be in the six-foot range, but Maul was uncannily short, with a maximum height of only five-foot-nine. In the everlasting laws of the universe, this made Raphael the alpha, and him the bitch. (A/N: Must...... not...... think....... nasty...... thoughts......)  
  
The prince slowly strode over to his prey, taking his time with what little he had. Maul stood to face him with malicious golden eyes, and fear was unrecognizable in them. He watched, never allowing himself to make eye contact, as his keeper paced around him three times, just as the bounty hunter had so long ago, until Raphael finally made his move.  
  
****A/N: NOBODY UNDER 17!!!*************************************************  
  
Maul's sluggish body would not respond as the prince's smooth hand lashed out, and curled slowly around his black throat, pinning him forcefully against the wall. His eyes stared lustfully, and he came very close to his prisoner's face.  
  
"Where...... is...... the...... emperor......" He slurred out every word so that the Sith could understand perfectly, challenging him to try and fight back. However, the dark warrior did not respond. Just stared, and struggled to breathe behind the iron grip of his captor. Raphael smiled, showing his perfect teeth.  
  
"Oh...... naughty, naughty boy......" He hissed, and pushed his weight downward, so that Maul came with him until they reached the floor. At this time, he forced the Sith's bracers back so that his muscular biceps were clearly visible against the silvery chrome of his prison, and tied his hands tightly against a loophole that jutted from the smooth wall. Now he was helpless.  
  
Raphael took this time to lust intentionally over his whore's body, and let his aroused eyes travel over each and every millimeter of smooth, tasteful skin he had to offer. He let go of his throat, and allowed his hands to unconsciously travel down his lean chest, then to his lightly toned stomach, down to his crotch, and halfway down his legs before going back to his crotch again. Maul only stared at the ceiling as this commenced, but snarled from the pits of his chest as the prince's unwanted fingers touched, and prodded at his groin with lustful pleasure.  
  
Raphael smiled wickedly at the Sith's discomfort, and quickly removed his robes to reveal his pulsating sex, leaning down once more to begin kissing him. He bit his whore's neck emphatically, and all-the-while removed his shadowy leggings with newfound pleasure. Maul bit back his urge to attack, and kill, for patience was his only ally at this point. Wait for the most opportune moment, and then make him suffer.  
  
The prince, with sudden a sudden drive of adrenaline, forcefully drove the Sith's legs apart, and placed himself on top of him. His smooth hands groped down his back, and curved over his butt until he felt the sure opening, while he continued to vigorously kiss his new pet. Raphael smiled madly, and forced one finger into the exposed hole, and he saw the Sith's face contort slightly with rage, and pain. Still, he continued this until he had forced three fingers in, and suddenly allowed himself to slide his manliness into the newfound opening.  
  
Darth Maul, in all his long years of life, had never expected one thing such as this to hurt so much. Raphael was relentless, and he pounded his prisoner into the floor like a madman. He hammered the Sith over, and over again until Maul began to wonder if he would ever let down. His face pinched in contorted agony, but he refused to give the Prince his pleasure of seeing him scream.  
  
Raphael smiled as he began to let down, making his prisoner think that he was finally over. Indeed, the dark warrior did let an exhausted sigh escape his lips, but it was here that the wicked prince thrust his whole length into him with one last movement, and released his seed. The Sith bit back a scream of intense, and unshed agony, and broke the skin on his lip doing so.  
  
*****A/N: Done now!***********************************************************  
  
Raphael stood, baring a toothy smile, and pulled his robe around him once more. "That was a good run, whore......" He said wickedly, "Perhaps you will give me even greater pleasure tomorrow night."  
  
Not even bothering to unlock the decrepit prisoner from the wall, he turned, and strode from the cubicle as if nothing had happened. However, it was an unneeded gesture. Darth maul only lay there like a pathetic child, shaking in tormented pain and suffering. He didn't cry, though. Sith don't cry. And he, most of all, didn't know how to cry.  
  
But, he did do something that cold night that he hadn't done in over ten years. Ten years since he came into Sidious' hands, and lost all feeling of emotion.  
  
He sat up slowly, put his hands together, and prayed.  
  
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A/N: NOOOOO!!!! THE TORTURE HAS BEGUN!!! WILL ANYONE SAVE OUR FAVORITE SITH?!? WILL RAPHAEL FINALLY SEE A SHRINK?!? WILL I STOP TALKING IN CAPS?!?!?! Find out on the next chapter of My Lonely!!! 


	4. My Mistake

A/N: Well, hello again, folks. I wanted to say thanks to all of the people that are reading this, whether or not you are reviewing. Knowing that one person gave me a comment (Even though it was my best friend, and I forced her to do under threat of cookie deprivation) it keeps me going to know that even one out of the millions of readers are here right now. I didn't do this story for entertainment, anyways. I just wrote it for my own twisted pleasure. So, anyways I'll keep the star warning up for places I seriously don't want anybody under 17 reading.  
  
Chapter 4!!!  
  
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How long had it been? He didn't know. Hours had turned into nothingness, and days had become months. All he understood was the pain, and the agony, and the ceaseless suffering he was forced to endure throughout the arrays of questions he refused to break under. His body bled hard, and then stopped, and then another day of torturing would come, and he would bleed again. Maul huddled in a compact lump of bones and flesh against the cold walls of chrome that had become his dwelling. Raphael left him alone in the day, but then when he returned from important business matters, the Sith would become his 'stress relief'. And now the dark jedi knight was sick. Figuratively, he inferred that his wounds had become infected, and then returned the favor by killing him from the inside out. He coughed, and blood stained his lips undefinably. He probably wouldn't last much longer here, but it was all the better. No sleep came to him now, for he was plagued with fevered dreams. Dreams of Raphael digging into him roughly, and the torture......  
  
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"Arise O humble warriors. Your humility is unneeded in my halls." Shegorad said with a soft smile. The four Jedi rose as she commanded, but the two masters continued on with bowed heads.  
  
"Your grace is present, as ever." An aquatic-suited alien commented with a half-hearted raise of the lips, and he bowed his sleek head low. He nodded to his female padawan, and she followed his heed perfectly with an exact imitation of what he had just done.  
  
"You flatter me, Vespasian." The queen replied kindly, and turned to his apprentice, who refused to meet her gaze. "And you, noble child, are as polite as your caretaker." The girl looked up finally, and her cold blue eyes feigned thanks. She, unlike her master, was much of a humanoid water- species.  
  
At this, the other Jedi master came forward with his hands hidden beneath the rims of his cloak, and bowed in recognition to the royalty. "Forgive me, Queen Shegorad," He began, "But might we begin our original affairs tomorrow? Our apprentices, like us, are weary from travel, and we ask humbly of your permission to retire for the night."  
  
Shegorad sat upon these words for a moment, and slowly nodded. "Go ahead, master Obi-Wan. We shall begin the meeting tomorrow. Rest easy, friends of Yoda." And watched with sincerely feigned pleasure as her guests bowed once more, and were escorted by two Khajiit towards their sleeping quarters.  
  
It was deep into the night, and Vespasian sat quietly meditating with his padawan. They had remained silent like that for nearly three hours now, and he could feel within his mind that Anamaria, his apprentice, was becoming fidgety. He opened his puritanically blue eyes, as did she, and watched her with a slight smile on his amphibian-like features.  
  
"Padawan," He began, "Usually you can meditate for four hours before losing patience. What is the matter?"  
  
Anamaria did not speak for a moment, contemplating her master's words. When she did verbalize, however, it was a slightly worried whisper. "Master, I feel as though this Queen is not revealing something to us. I sense a great disturbance very close by; as if the force is agitated......"  
  
Vespasian nodded slightly, and stood. "Yes, padawan. I sense this as well. Someone is probably being interrogated by her son at this point in time. I am sorry to say that she prefers the more painful methods of questioning prisoners of war here." He watched Anamaria's face contort with unshed pity, thinking of the poor souls that were unlucky enough to cross the queen's bad side.  
  
"But master...... I feel as though it is something more than just an innocent by standard...... it seems as though the life I sense is connected somehow with the force. And yet...... it is not." She replied softly. Her gray eyes were clouded in deep thought.  
  
Vespasian thought upon this for a moment, staring at the starless sky that was Gattaca's. He allowed himself to pry through every life spirit he could sense inside this castle, but could find nothing of what his apprentice had spoken of. "Are you sure?" He asked the girl gently, not wanting to worry her.  
  
Anamaria nodded, sure of herself. "Yes, master. I am positive." But the amphibious being that was her guardian shook it off. "Let us worry no more of matters such as these, my young padawan. We have an early morning tomorrow, and I think it is best that we rest now." To his impressively hidden shock, she nodded without rebellion.  
  
"Yes, master. I believe you are right." She said, and after moving into her room, shed her robes for a more comfortable night shirt. Shutting out the painful images that had forced their way into her mind, she turned off the light, and fell asleep.  
  
The girl dreamed that she was walking. Down, down deep into a tunnel that led god-knew where. Somehow, something was calling her. Not a voice, but a feeling. A feeling of excruciating sadness, fear, suffering, hate, and pain. She walked for what seemed like ten minutes, perhaps more if she were counting, but it didn't matter. Here, what mattered only was the dream.  
  
Anamaria allowed the aspiration to guide her, and walked until there came before her line of vision, many rows of small cells. They spanned the entire length of each side of the wall, and prisoners within them were most definitely not in the best of conditions. Some were paired in cramped spaces, and disease could spread like wildfire if given the chance; but this was not where Anamaria stopped. The dream walked her towards the back end of the hall, where a lone door sat, just screaming for her to open it. And she did. What met her eyes was a small hallway, and then another door at the end. Just one. She was beginning to become frightened, but her phantasmal reality refused to let her stop, and she strode towards the cell door with ease.  
  
There was nothing within the cubicle, but relinquished darkness. However, when she looked closer, she could see the faded outline of someone, or something propped against the chrome wall. She wondered for a moment if the figure was alive or not, and she called to it in an attempt at solving this particular riddle.  
  
"Hello?" She called softly. The somber chassis didn't move. Louder again she tried. "Hello?"  
  
This time, there was a response. The silhouette moved, and she saw it look up at her. Oh how she wished it had not.  
  
Haunting yellow eyes stared into hers from the void beyond the bars separating them, and it closed the demonic ocululae for one long moment. Anamaria, dazed with fear, backed away sharply, and into the nearest wall. However, she was too curious to run now.  
  
The figure opened its eyes again, this time slanted with obvious sadness. It stared so pathetically at her, that she could not help but believe that this were an innocent prisoner of the Queen Shegorad. Valiantly, it attempted to stand, and meet her, but ended in failure. Instead, it closed its auld eyes for a moment, and when they opened yet again, it spoke.  
  
"Please...... get out...... of here......" The voice was no more than a soft whisper, dry from obvious lack of water. Anamaria stared confusedly for a moment.  
  
"Why......?" She asked, kneeling down against the titanium bars. Her counterpart closed his eyes again, and this time did not bother to open them.  
  
"Because...... he'll kill you too......" He whispered, and was suddenly stricken with a violent array of hacking coughs. Anamaria became fearful, not for her own life, but for her opposite's. He sounded sick. Very sick.  
  
"Okay, don't worry. I'm going to get help......" She said, spurred upon the edge of the moment, and prepared to stand, when she noticed the blood staining her bare feet.  
  
"Ana?" Came the soft voice beside her. The girl opened her eyes with a jolt, noticing that she was in her own room. Or at least her quarters. The voice that had come from beside her was nothing less than Anakin's, and he was standing at the side of her bed with his sleeping robes clutched between his young fingers.  
  
Anamaria stared at the dark form beside her, and immediately sensed the waves of fear, and slight guilt emitting from him. Smiling, the young Jedi-in-training moved over so that she, and her fellow padawan could lay beside each other.  
  
"Had a bad dream, Ani?" She prodded gently, and wrapped a dark arm around him. The little boy nodded slowly, and snuggled up against her. Further, the girl urged him to speak. "What about?"  
  
Anakin paused for a moment before continuing. His voice was sad, and his eyes were, too. "I saw a man......" He said quietly, "And he was hurt. He kept coughing, and shaking like he was cold, but I didn't do anything. I just watched him......" The little boy paused, hesitating.  
  
"And then there was blood...... some other people came in, and they started to hurt him more. When they got done, he was crying, and I started to cry, too. Then I woke up......" Anakin stopped, and looked at his friend with confused blue eyes. "I knew him, Ana." He said in a hushed whisper, "I remember him from last year...... he killed Qui-Gon-Jinn." (A/N: spelling?)  
  
Anamaria did not speak for a long moment. Her eyes were hazed in a thoughtful trance, and the reply to the frightened boy was only one of: "It was only a dream, Ani. Go to sleep." And sleep the boy did. But his opposite lay awake as silent tears fell down her tanned face. Tears of regret, sorrow, and most of all, pity.  
  
%%%%%% (A/N: Serious torture scene here!)  
  
"I'm going to ask you once more, retched trash!" Raphael cried to the ceiling, "Where is Sidious?!"  
  
Darth Maul replied to nothing, even hanging over thirty feet above their heads. Nigh had he spoken a single word since arriving here over three weeks ago, and no attempt of theirs had promoted breaking him into revealing their precious information. Today, they were trying something new.  
  
Hanging him over their heads like a pinata.  
  
When the Sith did not answer, the prince raised his many-ringed hand, and the Khajiit guard next to him let go of the bungee rope. This caused a simultaneous reaction of having their prisoner dead drop thirty-and-a-half feet until his body hit the floor with a sickening crack of bone. Maul gasped, the wind knocked out of him, and felt the break of his safely guarded ribs.  
  
Before he could catch his breath, the Khajiit pulled hard on the rope again, sending the painted warrior soaring into the air.  
  
"Having fun yet?" Raphael cried again with a sneer. Maul spat, and the glob of saliva fell directly upon the royalty's boot. He leered triumphantly.  
  
However, the prince was not so amused. He watched quietly as the watery fluid, mixed with a nasty array of yellow phlegm, and blood trickled down his newly cobbled shoe, and dribbled seamlessly upon the floor. With tranquilized apathy, almost as if the calm before the storm, Raphael looked up so that his colorless eyes met the Sith's, and spoke sedately.  
  
"These shoes are fine tattoinian leather." He said, "They are worth more than your leg, and it is in this way that you shall pay me back for them."  
  
Maul barely had time to decipher this before an unseen pressure slammed against him, and he smashed violently into the stone walls. So hard in fact, that it forever more indented his body into it. Somehow, however, amidst the pain, and fever, he was able to look down, and see his captor's hand raised with his palm out.  
  
'Dear God......' He thought, the horror of reality sweeping into him, 'The whelp can tame the force!' And struggled valiantly against his unseen bonds. With a power like such, Raphael could most definitely hit the Sith where it really hurt.  
  
"Yes......" The prince sneered, noticing that his pet understood the truth now, "I am the keeper of such authority, and you are not." He seemed to be sing-songing in mockery, "I'll squeeze every last one of the bones in your leg until they're ground to dust." He clenched his fist together, and Maul suddenly felt a seething pressure begin to build in his left shin. The force that once so desperately buzzed around him moved down, almost defiantly, to the cold-hearted prince's designated area. It built in on itself until the coerce had traveled all over his aching embodiment, and Maul fought back the overwhelming urge to scream his sore lungs out.  
  
Raphael, amused at his prisoner's willful attempts to defy him, clenched both of his fists so that they were parallel to each other, almost as if he were holding a pole. Loud enough so that the warrior could hear him, he began to sing eerily.  
  
"The foot bone's connected to the shin bone...." And he swerved his hands, twisting the pole. Maul felt the pressure rise to an unbearable level in his leg, and his tibia crunched until it snapped in half. He bit his tongue until he tasted hard copper in his mouth, and still, his captor continued.  
  
"The shin bone's connected to the..." He paused for effect, "...Knee bone." Raphael pretended to hold a round object in his right hand; his left hand wrapped around it, and he twisted the invisible kneecap like a stubborn faucet. Maul's eyes shot open as he felt it bend with the prince's movements, snapping each tendon one by one like string. Each sent a shockwave of pain into his brain, and he swore he could feel the blood from each cord running into his body like a speeder full-force. His leg was becoming purple from internal bleeding, and the sheer cruelty of its demise.  
  
Raphael smiled wickedly, and gasped as if he had just noticed what he'd done. "Oh my!" He exclaimed in mock sympathy, "It seems as though you've broken yourself! Perhaps I should fix that damaged leg of yours......"  
  
In one fluid movement, the prince mimed grabbing a lever, and pulled hard.  
  
Darth Maul was in such a daze of feverish pain, and agony, that he hardly noticed as the severed bone of his shin wrenched through the multi- colored flesh. Only when he felt the hot tendrils of blood cascading down his skin did he realize what happened, and the full extent of it hit him like an oversized sack of limestone.  
  
His lurid eyes shot open, glazed slightly in shock, and he uttered the first sound he had ever made within these black walls.  
  
A scream.  
  
Twisted with agony, and torment, it escaped his mouth, paired up with a choking gush of bile, and wretched humiliation. Raphael smiled, satisfied with today's results, and lowered his ringed hand down to his side. The Sith fell limp, and his body peeled from the wall like a sticker, falling down to the prince's feet. He lay there, shaking with shock and fever, before his wicked tormentor motioned airily to the horrified Khajiit beside him.  
  
"Stand him up, and make him walk back to his cell. If he falls, flog him twenty times. If he tries to escape, slash him within an inch of his god- forsaken life. I have important business to attend to, so if you will excuse me." And without a second glance at the wounded creature spilling lifeblood at his now-ruined shoes, he turned with a whirling of his mantle, and disappeared out the door.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
A/N: Whoo! There's a scene for ya! We must wonder if Anamaria will ever save our beloved evil Sith before he dies. Present for flamers: Have fun! Chapter five coming soon to a website near you.  
  
HAPPY CHRISTMAS, AND A MERRY NEW YEAR!!! 


	5. Mine Only

A/N: Hi, sorry this took so long to update. School sucks. Because of his inspiration, this story has been dedicated to my best guy-friend Shane. He inspired me to create it in the first place, for he is the fifteen-year-old version of Darth Maul. (Although he manages to get beaten up, battered up, and mangled up, he always comes through without the slightest care) HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SHANETH OF LINCOLN!!!!  
  
Chapter 5  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
"Meal time, you lazy bums!"  
  
Gantu the Khajiit, and his partner Rioku traveled down each line of cubicles, casting loaves of burnt, and crusty bread towards each hand, claw, beak, and tentacle they could see. Every last crumb was gobbled up with intensifying speed by the prisoner's hungry mouths, except one. Rioku threw the stale food into Darth Maul's tiny cell, but the Sith made no move to grab it. He only curled into himself on the cold, ashlar confinements like a kit fox, shaking, and coughing with pyrexia. His body gave off the rank scent of infection; a most undesirable odor indeed.  
  
The cat nudged his partner, and smirked at the pathetic sight. "I'll betcha ten shillings he doesn't make it another three weeks."  
  
Gantu stroked his mane musingly, and showed his fangs. "Two and a half." He looked at his partner, who smirked. "It's damn well time the last Quinya falls. 'Specially a Jedi Quinya." Rioku hissed, and spat on their decrepit prisoner's face. Laughing, the two stalked towards the end of the hallway, and climbed the stairs.  
  
Now Maul was left alone. How he hated it. Shunned, tormented, bruised, and battered hate. Hate like a Sith. Like a murdering, unfeeling Jedi. No... Jedi were enemies, but they adored the force. They adored it like a Sith. He brought up his ungloved hand, and wiped the saliva from his eyes. The claws... nails like talons. Red nails like blood. He had once been pure, similar to white roses. Roses of silky, smooth white, sisters of the clouds. Watered, and trimmed, and proper, and pampered. Then it bled rain from the lonely clouds. Blood and hate. Drowning in the blood of anger, and suffocating in the darkness of hate. The blood of white roses. They grew wild, and smothered each other until there was only one left... one to inherit everything. But it was lonely... lonely for companionship.  
  
"Shut up, you whore..." He whispered to himself, because that's all he was. Another man's prostitute. The spoilt prince's stress relief. Sidious wasn't coming back for him. The emperor obviously thought he was dead, and he was probably going to be within the next few days. Dying for a man who neither cared, nor protected him. But Darth Maul wasn't an idiot. He didn't need to pine for inessential emotions such as those. He was a Sith. Knighted as a dark Jedi who needed only hate, and anger to live. Not love, not friendship, and definitely not pity.  
  
The door shrieked painfully, signaling its opening. Raphael's, and two unidentified pairs of steps pounded agonizingly in the warrior's throbbing head, and he sighed inwardly to himself. The prince was talking (quite loudly) obviously showing off his wide array of prisoners to whoever his next victims were.  
  
%%%%%%%%%%  
  
"Ah, yes. Our dungeons." Raphael drawled on, "Most of them are criminals sentenced to death row, or ... The Dark Brush, as most like to call it. We have a wide variety of species from every corner of the universe."  
  
Anamaria concealed her sadness well as she stared at each miserable prisoner laying quietly in their cells. Her attention shifted back and forth from their host to offer a slight nod, or an 'I see' and then towards the ever-strengthening presence of the disembodied force she had sensed two days ago. Vespasian called forth all of his attention to the prince, trying to concentrate on his voice instead of the screams coming from their racking room.  
  
The padawan recognized this place immediately, and caught the gasp that had threatened to escape her throat. She saw the door at the far end of the room, and turned to Raphael.  
  
"Pardon my rudeness for interrupting you, "She began softly. However, their host only shook his head, urging her to go on.  
  
"Um... If it is to his heir's will, then may he enlighten us on what lays behind that door?" Removing a hand from her long sleeve, she pointed a finger at the entree that had so desperately caught her attention. For a moment, she could have sworn she saw his eye twitch, but he masked it with a counterfeit smile.  
  
"Ah... yes." He answered eerily, "Two weeks ago, our unidentifiable... how would you put it..." He paused to think, "Friends... yes, our most loyal friends left on a mission two weeks ago to siege the dark emperor's hideout, and yet they had no visual resource to know what he looked like. It seems as though his apprentice feigned being our prize, so that his master could escape to a safe zone in the galaxy." He stopped for a moment, as if contemplating what he just said. "Perhaps you might know him from somewhere?" Raphael inquired.  
  
Anamaria looked to her guardian imploringly, and he seemed to get the message.  
  
"Mayhap we might be able to look upon his face?" Vespasian probed, and the prince nodded, smiling a sly smile. "Of course." He motioned with his smooth hand to follow, talking along the way. This time, the padawan listened.  
  
"Over the time he has been with us, my colleagues and I have tried various methods of interrogation, all of which he has not responded to until just recently. However, it's a shame that most of our fashions in probing information uphold long-term effects, and my bi- I mean, prisoner will be unable to comprehend much longer. Nevertheless, we are prepared to expend the Sith at any cost. We have other allies who would be more willing to help us."  
  
Anamaria scowled inwardly, though her outward appearance was calm. They stopped in front of the heavily secured titanium door, and Raphael carefully unhinged the locks before opening the mass of metal, and ore to allow his guests inside.  
  
The first thing that the girl did was pull her sleeve over the lower half of her face. The smell was so unbearably gagging, that it made her hackles stand on end, and she immediately let the force calm her into a noseless breathing. Vespasian didn't seem to mind. Of course, you wouldn't either if you didn't have a nose, would you? Raphael also seemed unaffected by it. But he was used to the smell of suffering.  
  
Beckoning them forward, he led the two down a short hallway lit only by primitive torches, and stopped at least six feet away from the last solitary cubicle in his horrible dungeon. A cubicle that, as in her dream, seemed to be filled only with darkness. However, that changed when, unlike her dream, the cruel prince raised a pipe from the wall, and slammed it brutally against a titanium bar.  
  
"Up, you rotten scab!" He hollered.  
  
Anamaria made a move forward, but Vespasian's scaly arm stopped her. He gave the padawan a disapproving tone, and she backed down, although not wholeheartedly. Nonetheless, she was able to watch quietly as a silhouette on the other side of imprisonment shuffled slowly in a meshed array of shadows. Master and padawan stepped forward to take a closer look, but while her elder stayed standing, the girl knelt quietly beside the bars, her eyes meeting with a pair of lurid, and demonisque ones.  
  
"Sith," Vespasian began, "What is your name?"  
  
Maul blinked slowly, but did not reply. Raphael growled slightly. "Speak when those above you ask of it, damnable creature!" He snarled. However, the warrior still did not respond, and closed his eyes again, not bothering to open them. Anamaria felt coy sympathy find its way into her soft heart, and she turned harshly on the prince.  
  
"Stop it. He is too frail to talk. Give him a rest."  
  
%%%%%%  
  
Argh. She said the f-word. The one word among many that symbolized weakness, mostly used for punishment or verbal abuse. Maul would have snarled at her in contempt, but to his grave annoyance, he found that she was right. He was too decrepit to even growl. However, because of the Jedi whelp's stand, Raphael answered, perceptibly aggravated, for him.  
  
"His knighted surname is Maul. Darth Maul. But Kalaskein is what the Rektilos prefer to call him." The prince hid his knowledge quite well, pretending that he knew nothing of his prisoner's past. Coincidentally, though, he had no idea that the same warrior had died after trying to assassinate Qui-Gon-Jinn, and Obi-Wan Kenobi, but both Anamaria, and Vespasian knew his name well. However, for reasons of their own effect, they dare not say it before the dark face of their host.  
  
"No..." The amphibious alien replied calmly, "I am afraid I do not know him. Forgive me if we are no help to you, but we must return to our quarters to discuss the importance of our truce." And he ended the conversation with a small tug at his mesmerized apprentice's robes. She snapped quickly out of her trance, although reluctant, and followed her master out the door from whence they had come.  
  
Maul watched her leave, observing the whelp's every movement with his haunting eyes. How she swayed in measure from side to side as she walked, and how her chalky white hair danced in a ballet of molten snow; revealing, then covering her slender shoulders.  
  
Jedi... Sidious had taught him all his known life that they were pessimistic fools. The knights, rather than control the force, and use it for power, had yielded into it like weak pigs. They hid in their 'secret council', very much compatible to yellow-bellied cowards, instead of fighting at the best opportune moment. That was what his master had said.  
  
'Then... why did the whelp say those things to me...?'  
  
It was true. When she had been kneeling beside his god-forsaken cell; after saying the f-word, the child had communicated with him through the force.  
  
"Listen to me well, Sith." Her choice of words was unpleasant, he had to admit, but her tone was not. "I'm coming back at midnight. Try to stay alive until then." She paused, and her voice suddenly became soft, "Don't worry... I'm not going to hurt you." Then, she left. Like a ghost.  
  
%%%%%%%  
  
"Marie, please try to calm down..."  
  
"Master, I am far beyond the level of consolation! That man we are trying to make truce with is a twisted monster! A psychotic freak!"  
  
"Padawan, please... I know you are very upset. So am I... but we must have patience."  
  
"Patience..." Anamaria's voice became a dangerous hiss, "Patience, master?! While we sit here and meditate, he's killing more innocents every minute!!! You think that just by having patience, and trusting the force, we can save those prisoners rotting away in their cells, but we can't!!!"  
  
"But we can, my child."  
  
The girl placed her head in her hands, and collapsed onto her bed. She felt like crying, so frustrating was this debate, but she couldn't. That was against her own personal edicts, and the edicts of those around her. Nobody liked a weak little girl. Suddenly, a webbed hand touched her shoulder, and the soft mattress sank to her right. Vespasian was consoling his padawan with all the tenderness of a father to a daughter.  
  
Finally unable to stand the pain any longer, Anamaria let the icy tears fall through her slender fingers. To a certain phantasmal degree, she hoped affectionately that her master would not see his apprentice sobbing like a little girl, but to her disgust, his moist eyes caught the tiny diamonds beginning to form at her feet.  
  
"Shh..." He whispered soothingly, and pulled her into his arms. He stroked her soft colorless hair, while she grasped his robes, and wept openly against his shoulder. "It's alright, Marie... you can cry..."  
  
With tears running down her dark cheeks, cry she did. And with difficulty, also was she able tightly hiccup her next few sentences.  
  
"M-Mas-ster... Y-You didn't s-see w-wha-at he d-did...! Y-You c-cou-ouldn't s-see what I s-saw!" Anamaria took a shuddering breath, "I-I saw... fear..." Another shaking breath, and she was able to calm herself somewhat, "Tyrant... T-That prince, I s-saw it in the S-Sith's eyes when h-he stared at me..."  
  
Vespasian allowed her to pull away, for no matter how much he wanted to keep her safe in his arms forever, he knew that he could not. "What did you see, my padawan...? Hush, now... just speak slowly."  
  
Indeed, the girl tried with all her power to keep her voice steady. "M- Master... I stared at h-him, the Sith... a-and I saw... I-I saw..." She could not seem to finish, and trailed off. The elder alien, however, urged her on with hopeful words. "Come now, child... tell me."  
  
Seeming to be shocked out of an unknown trance by her guardian's voice, she shook her head, and continued. "I saw... the same thing you saw in me..." She whispered.  
  
%%%%%%%  
  
"My lord... plan's wake... full existence..."  
  
"Excellent.... ready army.... week..."  
  
'Then the clouds obstructed, and God said: "I have no clue."' Darth Maul swam quite ceaselessly through consciousness for (What he would later presume) about the next eight hours, drifting conversations of Raphael and one of his cronies lingering irritatingly through his mind. About now, he figured the consistency of his brain was cotton, after nearly two weeks of relentless torture, and the only thing that kept him alive was sheer will alone. However, the broken words, and speeches of his wicked caretakers played and replayed themselves unabashed over, and over again until he could take it no more. There was something going on here. Something big. Raphael had been too euphoric lately, and he left most of the torturing to his Khajiit followers.  
  
'It's not my problem.' He stated wryly to himself  
  
'Yes it is.'  
  
'Shut up. It's the Jedi's.'  
  
'The Jedi's, eh? Then why are you being dragged into it?'  
  
'How in the bloody Hell am I supposed to know?!'  
  
'Ooh... what about that girl? She said she would be here...'  
  
'Exactly. And she's not. So shut your mouth, and let me sleep.'  
  
'You know, if you fall asleep now, you're going to die.'  
  
'Yes.'  
  
'.....'  
  
For the third time that day, the door leading into his cell opened, and the Sith lifted his head passively; however, the steps of this intruder did not resonate metallically like Raphael's did. Instead, they were soft, and padded quietly along the echoing abyss like a dog's would. Darth Maul waited with carefree interest, hoping silently that it was not just a shoeless Khajiit.  
  
Indeed, it was not. Merely the whelp who had made the stupid promise to him earlier. She came perambulating down to hell with that strangely colorless hair bobbing directly with her movements, and she carried a small bundle in her arms. Noting the cold glance he gave her, she smiled ever-so-slightly, much to his annoyance, and sat her small rump beside him.  
  
"Hello." Anamaria said. Her voice was soft, much ado to oppose the air of the dungeon. Darth Maul found that he wanted her to say it again.  
  
'What in Hell am I thinking?!' He berated himself, and then settled back to his dry glare.  
  
The girl smiled delicately, regardless of her uncomfortable feelings. She had to remind herself that even though it was a Sith she sat next to, he was still human (To a degree) and being human, he was deeply hurting. Both physically, and mentally.  
  
"I brought something to keep you warm." She said, and showed him the blanket which had been the lump in her arms. He glared at it for a moment, and went back to staring at the wall. Anamaria, to some strange twist of emotion, smiled again at his repulsion of assistance. He obviously thought that he could take care of himself, and was currently failing miserably. So, she unfolded it, and slowly leaned forward to cover him.  
  
Darth Maul's eyes suddenly slitted, and he let the most bloodcurdling snarl one could muster in a situation like this. Anamaria flinched slightly, jerking back, but could not tear her face away from his. Suddenly, he blanched, ending the exhalation with an asthmatic cough, and leaned forward to obtain a better breathing angle.  
  
The girl, rid of her fear, and now plagued by pity, was able to see in the fugitive torchlight his nearly severed leg, which had become infected with dirt and all manner of filth. She was immediately disgusted beyond all recognition towards Raphael, the sardonic asshole, for he was the only culprit who could have created something as horrifying as this.  
  
Slowly, as one would do in the situations involving wounded animals, Anamaria moved forward with her slim arms held above her head, trying to demonstrate how she was not going to hurt him.  
  
Darth Maul stopped coughing after a moment, but his breaths were hollow, and lacking fullness. He tried to snarl at her again, but this only ended with him in a prostrate location: at her mercy. He hated to be at ANYBODY'S mercy; even his master's. Through dulled vision, he could see her inching forward, arms spread out like a squash vine, looking for all the world like she was going to hug him. Not being able to make any manner of evil, nasty noises to her, he twisted his frightening face into the most foul grimace a Sith could muster.  
  
She didn't seem to get the point.  
  
Managing to conjure up a vessel of strength he didn't even know he possessed, Maul tightly curled his black lip over a stained fang, and forced the words from a quickly constricting throat.  
  
"Wench...... I demand you from my sight......" He hissed.  
  
Anamria stopped, shot down by his words, but it did not show on her face much to his dismay. No, in fact, she smiled gently, and lowered her arms to the stone floor. "We're making progress..." That annoyingly jaunty visage of hers widened at the confused glimmer in his flecked eyes, "You talked to me."  
  
A/N: *Sigh* As I stated before, school sucks. The mental strain is giving rise to frequent writer's blocks, and therefore taking me a heck of a lot longer to update. That and another story I'm writing for my friend. Well, next chapter soon. (I hope.) 


	6. I've run out of lyrics so this is just g...

A/N: Hello! Chapter six is finally here, with potential romance ahead! Also, Quinya is pronounced (Keen-Ya) not (Kwin-Ya). Now that we've got THAT cleared up, enjoy!  
  
Thanks everybody for your reviews! Be sure to join FF.net so I can read YOUR work, too!  
  
Chapter six  
  
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The next few nights she came to visit him faithfully; each restless dark bringing with her the gentle, almost river-like air. They never spoke, for she knew that by now that he was hardly able to even move (no matter how hard he tried to disprove this theory) and suffered almost constantly from the pyrexia caused by his near-severed leg. Anamaria marveled at his unbreakable will; that strange force that kept him alive through conditions she herself would have succumbed to long ago. Each night, she left her rooms in secret, crept unnoticed through the shadows, risking her very life just to be with him. To comfort without even knowing it herself. Every time she would find him in the same position as the last, his body continuing to fight a furious battle it would eventually lose. However, when she sat beside him, the tension released, and he slept feverishly until she left again.  
  
'Why?' Anamaria wondered while staring at her ceiling, 'Why do I feel pity for this Sith, who murdered a fellow Jedi? Why does my heart twist whenever I see him?' She turned onto her side, pulling the warm covers up to her chin. Despite this, she still shivered.  
  
'Because, no matter how evil they are, a mortal is still a mortal. No one, not even a mass killer, deserves to die alone.' Her mind finally responded to the question above. Anamaria sighed softly. Suddenly, a provoking thought etched itself into her brain.  
  
'Do I... care for him?'  
  
%%%%%  
  
"Poor, poor, weak little Sith..." Raphael chided with a sardonic grin splitting his face, "It hasn't the strength to even make a snide remark anymore." That retched smile grew wider, and he backhanded Darth Maul to his bloodied knees.  
  
The Prince of Gattaca began to pace.  
  
"What a venomous shame, though..." He hissed, "If you'd had the intellect to understand, then you would be groveling quite righteously at my feet now." Another slap, "I have plans far greater than one man could ever comprehend, and YOU are the soul of it," He smirked, "For whatever soul you have left..."  
  
The Khajiit laughed softly around him. "You see..." Raphael continued, still pacing, "I wanted your passionate lord because he was the only defect in my master plan... My plan to unhinge the republic, and bring Gattaca to power!" He backhanded Maul harder than ever.  
  
"Oh... and," He forcefully lifted the Sith's jaw to meet his gaze, "Just because of your defilement towards my humble hospitality, that whore you've been seeing will be the first to go..." And he bared his teeth in an even more menacing gesture of evil.  
The dark knight, faltered by this new information, allowed his xanthus eyes to widen double their normal size, and horrid images ran through his fading mind. This was just the kind of leverage Raphael needed.  
  
"Ah... yes... here she comes now...." He allowed a lustful smile to play his lips, and turned to Gantu, "Set out the wards, and unlock his manacles..." Quietly he leaned in to the khajiit's ear, "when you're done, meet me back in the throne room..."  
  
The prince watched his guard unlock the great amount of restraints adorning his prisoner's body, then exited grandly from the cell to determine matters far more important than this. Gantu followed him soon after.  
  
Maul sat there quietly for a moment, his celebrated eyes closed over black lids, and savored the feeling of a considerably lightened body. The whelp would be down here soon. He turned his head slightly towards the door from which he had entered Hell almost three weeks ago, and felt his stomach tighten. Whether this was from the nausea of sickness, or anxiety he did not know, but thinking about the padawan being ripped to shreds by those vicious wards only made it worse.  
  
'Damn this...' He thought, 'Damn them all to Hell...'  
  
The Sith resumed his slumped position, and went over every option he had; this being narrowed down to two:  
  
One: He could attempt to escape, and resume his heartless disposition of allowing the only living organism to ever show him compassion be torn to little pieces by some mutant cats. Two: He could let HER escape, and resume a disposition of a hero who was torn to little pieces by some mutant cats. Either way, he was probably going to die. If he escaped, where would he go? Steal a ship?  
  
Hell no.  
  
He could hardly stay awake as it was, let alone drive a whole F-ing transport. If he saved the whelp, though, she might be merciful enough to dump him in space like a sack of garbage, and let him suffocate there. Dammit! She was the whole brunt of this! Why didn't he just let her die?!  
  
'Because you care for her.'  
  
'WILL YOU JUST SHUT UP?!'  
  
'If you would listen to me more often, then maybe I would.'  
  
'I do not, nor ever will care for a Jedi.'  
  
'But she's not a Jedi.'  
  
'DAMMIT, SHE HANGS OUT WITH THEM ENOUGH!!!'  
  
'If she were a part of this conversation she would tell you to be quiet, and save your voice.'  
  
'And monkeys are flying out of my ass.'  
  
'I can arrange that.'  
  
'And if you do, then I will be forced to rip off whatever subconscious head you have, and shove it up YOUR ass.'  
  
'Just go save her.'  
  
'A bit blunt now, aren't we?'  
  
'Blunt as a monkey flying out of your ass.'  
  
'....'  
  
'What do you have to lose?'  
  
Maul sighed quietly. What DID he have to lose? His reputation? That had flushed down the potty a LONG time ago, and he had to admit that the whelp did catch a facet of his mind that he had long since forgotten.  
  
Gathering up what remnants of strength he had left, the Sith forced himself onto wavering feet, and clutched the wall for some much-needed support. The whelp would be saved; whether it be at the cost of other's lives, or his own.  
  
%%%%%  
  
Anamaria's gentle footfalls reverberated with every step she took, making it seem as though there were others walking with her. Shadows danced in a ballet of darkened fear across the addle walls, causing things that were not meant to be frightening to scare her nearly out of her wits. The young padawan rounded a corner gracefully, from which there were supposed to be several cages, each housing a strange catlike beast. Raphael had showed her these creatures on their tour of the castle. They were quite large animals, about the size of a small horse, each sporting spots, stripes, and the like. Their bodies were wide, and their jaws were unevenly placed, filled with thousands upon thousands of needle sharp fangs. Their claws tapped restlessly as they paced hungrily in their cells, and it was here Anamria stopped to listen for these sounds.  
  
Tap, tap, tap... hiss...  
  
Convinced, she passed the rows of dark cages, and entered the next hall. However, in her haste, the padawan had not observed the fact that each cage was completely empty.  
  
Nor the scarlet eyes watching her from the rafters.  
  
She continued on, humming a soft tune, her chalky hair whistling close behind her, still ever-the-more oblivious of the fleet-footed paws ascending the resist straight above her head. And also, the claws which accompanied it like a cello to the violin, each quietly rapping against the metallic bracers adorning the high ceiling.  
  
In fact, it was not until she felt a warm, wet substance drip onto her shoulder that her blunt sense of danger finally started to kick in. She touched the oozing stuff with a bit of disgust, for it had the consistency of watery porridge, and screwed her face up nastily.  
  
Huff....  
  
She froze.  
  
Huff...  
  
Hot air played against the back of her nape, and the wispy hairs there stood on end. Anamaria stayed perfectly still, even as the thing's nose pressed against her skin like a subzero iron, burning into her flesh, for she knew that however powerful a ward may be, it was equally poor in sight.  
  
The accursed sentinels of Gattaca's castle growled angrily, and hissed all around her, confused as to why their prey had suddenly faded from their minuscule vision. Anamria gulped back the panic quickly rising from her toes, and breathed deep but quiet breaths. Her lightsaber, of all places, was back in her quarters (and just when she needed it the most).  
  
CRASH!!!  
  
The ward's gag grazed lightly against her skin as it whirled around to investigate the strange noise, deep growls reverberating from its belly. The padawan closed her eyes in deep relief, the panic she had felt earlier surging out through her sweat glands. A pair of haunting yellow eyes glowed in the shadows, beckoning her in that respect, and she sprinted there without question.  
  
Wasting no time for inquiries, the Sith grabbed her wrist, and pulled her into a dank chute, most likely used at one point for time-saving trips from one end of the castle to the other. From his judgement, they would have about five minutes to get to his 'safe zone' before the damned cats found them, and at his pace of speed, they would make it there in about one- million years.  
  
Oh no...  
  
A fork. Three paths led into total darkness, ending only god-knew- where. Maul struggled to remember which one he had come through, but his mind drew a complete blank. He let go of his companion's wrist, and began to pace, cradling his terrible face in his hands. Anamaria watched him, knowing quite well what kind of predicament they had gotten into. However, she was insanely curious as to how he had gotten out of his captor's hands in the first place. Wasn't he dying the last time she saw him?  
  
"Si- I mean, Darth Maul..."  
  
"Shut up, whelp... I'm trying to think..." He snapped angrily.  
  
Anamaria let a snort of frustration, and leaned heavily against the wall. "Okay, fine. Take as much time as you want. I mean, it's not like we're being chased by some rabid ocelots are we?" She replied sarcastically; but from the hall, there came a terrific shriek, then the grumose hammer of three oversized housecats tracking their scents. Maul sucked in a quick breath, and grabbed her wrist again, pulling her down the far left tunnel.  
  
They ran for a moment, down into the stinking deep of the castle where a putrid stench clogged the young padawan's nose. She gagged heavily, feeling bile rise into her throat, and quickly covered her tear-stained face with a shirt sleeve.  
  
"By God, what IS that?!" She muttered loudly. Darth Maul stared up at the ceiling, then at the walls, whirling in each direction as if he was sensing a disturbance, but not seeing it.  
  
"Something's wrong..." He whispered, "This isn't right..."  
  
The coarse fear in his striking voice was enough to make her completely silent. She barely dared to breathe underneath her sleeve for fear that either the tension would break, or a ward would come pouncing out of the shadows. Anamaria watched as he continued to wildly avert his haunted gaze to each wall; each stone, his feet taking him to their own destination. He backed further away, his gaze forward, but his gait backward.  
  
Snap  
  
It was the most disgusting sound she had ever heard. The Sith whirled around, hearing the revolting crack as well. He looked down at the ground, then stared dumbly at it for nearly half a minute before he had realized what had happened. No, much to what you, the reader, may be thinking right now, it was not HIS leg, but another's.  
  
His knees buckled slightly, as if burdened by some new weight, and he stumbled backward against the wall, his famed eyes wide in shock, and his face shining ethereally with sweat. Anamaria looked first to him, and then to the place he had been standing just a moment ago. To frighten a Sith, it must have been terrifying.  
  
She held out her hands, softly chanting "Appredicar te nova" and white light burst from her fingertips. It took her a moment for her eyes to become exploited against the bright luminosity, but what she saw when they did made the very essence of her life-giving blood run cold. It seemed as though every fiber of time had come to a complete stop, just to mock her in an evanescent experience.  
  
Oh yes, they had most definitely gone the wrong way. Most definitely, indeed; for instead of running into the main archways, they had run straight into a dumping ground.  
  
Filled to its tip with rotting corpses.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
A/N: Review. 


	7. Whoever said love was forever was drunk

A/N: Sorry, "Someone." I got your review, like, WAY after I put the sixth chapter up; but yes, I did base some of the characters off of Morrowind, like the Khajiit, and Queen Shegorad. I just couldn't find cool enough names for them. I'll put a disclaimer up for that, too.  
  
DISCLAIMER(S): Under no circumstances do I own The Elder Scrolls III Morrowind, nor Star Wars. I'm just playing with Bethesda's and Lucas's toys, but I promise I won't dirty them, break them, or leave them out in the rain.  
  
Chapter Seven  
  
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No combined words could describe what she was seeing in front of her. Nothing. The one Darth Maul had strode on was just the first out of hundreds- maybe thousands of decaying, rotting carcasses strewn about the room like worthless vermin. It sickened her, and tickled her mind to see young children, even newborn babies ariled along with their parents, almost as if an entire race had been wiped out in a matter of moments. Some of the bodies were flaccid, and others were bloated, meaning that this had happened sometime within the last year or two.  
  
Anamaria looked down at the face of one poor soul, whose dead eyes stared at everything, but saw nothing. His flesh was a sickly purple, obviously incorporating the fact that he had died of some strange plague. Of course, as she looked around the vast expansions of crypt, ALL of the dead seemed to have purple skin. What if it was still contagious?  
  
Immediately, she whirled around to face her dark comrade, fearing already what kind of state she would find him in.  
  
Darth Maul, however, was still propped up against the wall, though his breathing had become deathly shallow, and his multi-colored face was soaked with sweat. Stripped demon eyes stared at the wall opposite of him, lost in another part of the expansive galaxy as he pondered memories long forgotten to time.  
  
Everything... everything crashed down on him in a single heartbeat. Retention, and sin flooded his weakened mind, churning in the primordial soup of irony over and over again through his brain. Swirling, cascading, spinning, falling. Fading, breathing, but drawing no breath. Dancing, but without music. Everything.  
  
Memory.  
  
Oh, Lord... the medicine was wearing off. He broke the stilled silence to look at his haggard body. On his stomach, the skin slowly tore apart, forming a heavy gash that had been inconspicuously hidden just a few moments ago. Smaller slashes also began to refocus, the just perfectly healed flesh ripping apart as easily as one could tear a wet piece of paper in half. Knowing their time was short, Maul stood up on his buckling legs, and grabbed Anamaria's wrist again, reversing their direction down into another tunnel. She didn't seem to mind the exeunt of their previous encounter with a mass of rotting carcasses, and was all-the-more eager to run down a slightly less reeking vestibule; however, she DID notice her guide's wounds reforming, and became concerned at this.  
  
"You... you took yarrow... didn't you...?" She breathed apprehensively, finally realizing the truth. Yarrow. A small, gray and concentrated flower with red thorns native only to Tattooine. When consumed, it had the remarkable ability to, for a limited amount of time, heal all anomalies of its devourer. But the flower was rare, and outlawed. Why? Because a side affect of its divine powers was a horrible sickness, which, by its artificer was called Perchance To Die. The victim would suffer dreadfully from severe dehydration, and constant, excruciating pain caused by pent-up nerve endings. Rarely did marks of this sickness survive, not because of actually DYING from the disease, but by committing suicide after long, awful hours of suffering unremittingly.  
  
Maul snorted. Did she take him for a fool? Of course he had used yarrow! But not in the way that she would have expected. He had actually (knowing full-well the consequences of consuming the flower) ground it into a paste, and rubbed it over his numerous wounds, thereby able to reap the benefits of its healing powers, but avoiding their disastrous consequences.  
  
"Of course I took the damn plant, wench..." He growled, "But, much to your dismay, I'm not going to drop dead in front of you..."  
  
They were back between the crossroads leading into different hallways. Anamaria whirled around in front of him so that she was level with his neck, hurt quite viable in her blue eyes.  
  
"'Much to my dismay?'" She repeated, "I never wanted any harm to come to you! I saw in your eyes what Raphael was doing, and-"  
  
"AND WHAT?!" He shrieked, the anger too much now, "YOU THINK THAT IT'S ALL A GAME?! DO YOU THINK I ENJOYED BEING MOLESTED EVERY SINGLE NIGHT AS IF I WERE HIS BITCH?! DO YOU THINK I LIKED TO HAVE BRAINWASHED CATS TORTURE ME FOR HOURS ON END?! DO YOU, WENCH?! DO YOU LIKE TO SEE A GODFORSAKEN SITH SUFFERING AS HE SHOULD?! DO YOU?!?!"  
  
Anamaria's brows slanted with sorrow, and she stared directly into his broken eyes. Oh, how she wished to pity him, but the young padawan knew it was impossible.  
  
"No..." She said softly, "I don't... I hated to see you in there, hurt and sick... I thought I shamed you, but now I know... I know what to think, and what to say. Don't think that just because you don't know how to care for someone, that they won't return that care... Because it suddenly dawned on me, too."  
  
Out of her line of vision, a heavy shadow moved in the darkness.  
  
"All of my life, I have learned nothing but to distrust. No one could understand me, and I refused to teach them. But now... now I am standing before the one man who knows. He knows the ache of loneliness... He knows how it feels to yearn for someone to love, and love in return."  
  
A glint of silver reflected off of the torchlight.  
  
"Don't you see, Darth Maul? I care for you. Your lonely is my lonely, and my lonely is your lonely. I don't worry about the fact that you won't care for me, as I do you, but I'm going to help you no matter what you say. I just want to know the answer to one question."  
  
Black eyes slitted in the shadows.  
  
"Do you care for me?"  
  
The Sith stared down at her, his body aching again with the reforming wounds, and his beautifully horrifying face rivaling with concern. Her speech had caught him off guard, and he was unable to answer her question. Hadn't she stayed with him all those terrible nights when Raphael had raped him, and tortured him? Didn't she comfort him as no one else had ever comforted him before? Why was he even here? Risking his very life to save hers?  
  
"I..."  
  
The silver flashed.  
  
But she was a Jedi! An artless, base-court clotpole! (A/N: hehe) Not to mention his greatest enemy! She was the very race that had destroyed his life, consumed his only family. And here he was, thinking that he CARED for her?  
  
Never.  
  
But... then again... no one had cared for HIM either...  
  
"I... I..."  
  
Suddenly, the danger hit him like an oversized sack of lead. He whirled around to defend himself, but it was too late.  
  
Anamaria gasped as Raphael careened out of the shadows, a silver knife in hand, and slammed into the injured Sith, pinning him to the ground. He was laughing insanely, his black eyes glittering with madness, and Darth Maul was unable to move under the carnassial pressure of the Prince's forcefelt body.  
  
The padawan, suddenly realizing where this was going, lunged forward, and attempted to fight off Raphael with her own bare hands. He, however, had known this, and slammed a sizeable amount of his power right smack into her chest. Anamaria could only let a startled gasp as she flew backwards into the nearest wall, crumpling to the floor in an unconscious heap.  
  
The insane prince grinned maniacally at his work, then turned back to his weakened prey. Bringing the silver knife to his lips, he ran a fleshy tongue over the blade, that mad glint ever-present in his bottomless eyes. He lowered the vane down, and against the Sith's unscathed neck, where he proceeded to draw blood with a small cut.  
  
"Ring around the Rosy, a pocketful of posies; ashes, ashes we all fall down..." He sang insanely, then licked the blade again, along with all its contents.  
  
"Oh dear, dear me..." He began again, "I had no intention of letting you find that little room, but it seems as though you've found it out!" Here, he smiled madly, baring his perfect teeth, "Memories are such a bother, aren't they, Sith? Revealing themselves at the least inconvenient time..." He fingered the blade, "My father had every intention of killing you that day three years ago, and indeed, he believed he had... but now it seems as though that rotten bitch mother of yours sent you away with a so-called... Palpatine..."  
  
Darth Maul's eyes widened to a breaking level. That was impossible! He had lived as a slave until his master found him!  
  
"Ah, yes... I see what you mean, Sith..." Raphael chided, still fingering the knife, "You didn't seriously think that all of those unlucky fechers in that room back there were just magically transported, did you? Think about it..."  
  
Maul, still staring wide-eyed at his captor, proceeded to dig deep within his mind for a memory. Indeed, he did see something. A vague image of what seemed to be a woman. With freckled yellow eyes, and ebony skin...  
  
A plague... someone dead at his feet... no, wait... not dead... bowing?  
  
"Kalaskein! Kalaskein!" He cried, and tried to kiss his feet. But that same woman from before... she grabbed him, and they started to whizz through the same streets he had come upon this planet from. Dead bodies littered the path, bloated and... purple...? They came to a stop before a man, hidden by a shadowed cowl. The woman pushed Maul forward, and she seemed to be... pleading... to the dark man.  
  
Finally, he nodded, and grabbed him by his wrist, shoving him into a chrome space cruiser, and then there was darkness.  
  
Darth Maul snapped back into reality as the dagger plunged into the floor just millimeters away from his neck. Raphael was breathing heavily, and his black hair veiled that pale face.  
  
"Kalaskein..." He sing-songed, "Kalaskein, the God... Kalaskein, the opposer... Kalaskein, who will lead his people to freedom!" Now he seemed intensely furious as he ripped the knife from its place, "Kalaskein... will never speak of this again..." His eyes were mad, and his smile just as. He lowered his weapon against the Sith's neck, mocking his power, and sang again as his blade slowly pressed into his prisoner's flesh.  
  
"Ashes... ashes... we all fall down..."  
  
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A/N: I'll have a McNasty with fries, please. 


	8. And the gore just keeps getting gorier

A/N: No, he is not going to die-  
  
yet.  
  
Chapter eight  
  
#############################################  
  
His blade sank deeper, and deeper into the soft flesh. Darth Maul tried to struggle, but he was pinned down with so much pressure, any more would have killed him. When Raphael seemed to go as deep as he could without obliterating the Sith, he smiled, and in one fluid movement, swiped his knife across the entirety of his neck.  
  
The dark Jedi's eyes widened, his own scarlet blood pooling warmly about his head. The prince sheathed his weapon, and replaced it with a very small, very green vial, filled to its tip with a strange, thick liquid. He bit down on the cork brutally, madness driving him to new strength, and ripped it off without any further care. Fading into that familiar world of darkness, Maul watched as he cackled, and poured the tinted liquid over his new wound, screaming:  
  
"VEHANI EWU, JEDI!!! VEHANI!!!"  
  
Anamaria, awakening from her broken sleep, saw Raphael's silver blade elegantly slide across her comrade's throat, the tiny droplets of deep scarlet blood flinging through the air with such decelerated grace. Each little bit pitched itself forward unto death, splurging upon the tainted ground with a resounding CRACK. She was vaguely aware of her own mouth opening as the mad prince separated the bond between a small bottle, and his pocket. Her vision fading as he ripped off the cork with his teeth; the scream as he poured the vile concoction upon her rescuer's wound. It seemed from then on, God was moving her body for her.  
  
Raphael heard the mad war-cry of a semi-conscious bulldozer pitching itself toward his thin body, and he looked up, but it was too late. He grunted as Anamaria's deranged form plummeted into his, sending them both careening nearly ten feet into the nearest wall. She screamed like a banshee, throwing her fists into his horselike face, and her pristine blue eyes mad as stinging hot coals.  
  
"HOW DARE YOU!!!" She screeched, "HOW DARE YOU EVEN TOUCH HIM, YOU DISGUSTING ROACH!!! I'LL KILL YOU!!!!" And she continued to slam her fists into every inch of unscathed flesh she could find upon him. Raphael, however, lifted his bloodied face, and in an adrenaline rush of anger, he screamed, sending every last wave of the force crashing into his attacker.  
  
Anamaria was hurled sidelong at nearly thirty miles an hour away from the prince's body, slamming forcefully into the ground in a record-breaking fifty feet. She cried out in pain, feeling for once: the righteous power of the angry force, and struggled to push herself up.  
  
Raphael slowly (and quite shakily) stood, wiping the blood from his broken nose, and spitting out a tooth that had separated itself from his mouth. His eyes were insanely glittered again, like mad whirlpools in a raging tide. He cracked his knuckles tempestuously, and with a soft clink, clink, clink of his leather boots, he stalked towards the fallen padawan with his right hand held before him.  
  
Anamaria watched, horrified, helpless, and hopeless as the deranged royalty walked stiffly toward her, face bloody and eyes wild. His feet fell with a most undesirable shivering of the ashlar walls, and each separate movement sent another wave of the force pressing angrily into her. He smiled an awful smile, and licked his bleeding lips as if in mocking retribution. Slowly, slowly, he reached out his pinched hand, readying it to grasp her neck, and never let go; but... something stilled him to his very bones.  
  
"Don't you dare touch her..."  
  
Raphael froze in mid step, his eyes enlarging to double their average size, and whirled around to face the disembodied voice.  
  
There stood Darth Maul, straight and unscathed as if no wound had ever graced his body. But... it also... wasn't Darth Maul. His beautifully horrifying face had edited itself into, not red and black, but instead blue had replaced the red, and white had replaced the black. His eyes, once so demonized, and yellow had become a strange tone of forbidden ice. A tidal wave of the force seemed to swirl and cascade over, around and in his transformed body, moreso than any other being could comprehend. So much, in fact, that it was VISIBLE around him.  
  
Raphael's ecstatic surprise soon turned back to pompous hate, and he smiled angrily at the Sith.  
  
"So... Kalaskein has decided to grace us with his presence after all, hm?"  
  
The dark knight didn't move an inch.  
  
"Tell me, then, Quinya... do you even have the guts to TOUCH me, you pathetic, weak-minded Sith?! Hm?! You can't do anything to me!! YOU HAVE A CONSCIENCE!!!" He laughed loudly, and wildly, his head tilted back as if mocking the very sky.  
  
Darth Maul stared quietly, but a voice penetrated the walls of his force-barrier, speaking for him. It was neither male, nor female, but a soft gush of wind. Disembodied, and icy as the freshly fallen snow.  
  
"You misjudge me... fallen prince... Indeed... this conscience you speak of... it is present... but in favor of your demise... I have refused to listen to it..." He spoke slowly, as if saying too much would break the thin pane of glass separating him from the real world. Raphael's laugh died, and he stared, thoroughly confused.  
  
"I... am a savior among nations... my nations... people you shun..." Here, he held up a clawed hand before the prince's heart, "Sinner of Hades... Violent against God... artificer of despair... you may die... now."  
  
***A/N: SERIOUSLY GORY STUFF HERE**************  
  
For an eternally brief moment, there was absolute silence. The very foundations of the universe froze upon their hinges, and every string of time broke in its favor. Raphael's confused stare emitted for only an instant, but then his black eyes widened. Something inside of his chest seemed to bounce, and jump; desperate to come out.  
  
CRACK  
  
The prince slowly looked down, to the place where his ribcage separated, and stared at the bulging flesh there. His costae seemed to be forcing themselves apart, like an opening door. He then averted his eyes back to where Darth Maul's hand lay a few feet from that very place, and his so-called demise hit him like an oversized sack of lead.  
  
"NOO!!! PLEASE, NOO!!!" His hands scrambled frantically to his ribs, trying to push them back into his body, but the will of the force was not to be outdone by mere mortals.  
  
With a gurgled scream of pain, Raphael's ribcage burst apart, and wrenched through his flesh, spreading themselves as an eagle spreads its great wings. All manner of bodily fluids, and blood spewed across the floor, and his organs were as visible as looking through a window. But the prince was not dead. He stood where he was last, blood staining his chin, and face as he purged it up from his reluctant body. His lungs pulsated with incased air, and his heart rapidly beat itself, refusing to die.  
  
"Foolish little human..." Darth Maul's disembodied voice spoke again, "You believed... in the ungodly law... of only the strongest... survive..." His hand moved slowly to its left, and so did his ex-captor's left wing. Raphael's failing vocal box let out what seemed to be a splurged scream, resembling, however, more of a sickening groan.  
  
"Does it hurt... little mortal...?" Again, his right hand. This time, one could clearly make out a considerably weakened shriek. "Does it burn...? I suppose... one could presume... that it would..." He paused, and Raphael's bloodshot eyes stared sightlessly into his crystalline ones, "Time and time over... we warned you... but you had no heart... you still have no heart... I do not approve... God does not approve... and so... it seems the dream... of his majesty Raphael... has ended."  
  
Darth Maul's clawed fingers clenched into a fist, and he jerked his right arm forcefully. The prince gasped shrilly as his body jerked in a violent spasm, and his slowly beating heart wrenched its way out of his chest with a bloody splurge of gore, and flew straight into the Sith's waiting grasp. Raphael stood silently for a moment, mad eyes gazing sightlessly to nothing, then crumpled to the ground in a bloody heap.  
  
The reborn Kalaskein stood there like a statue, the wicked prince's still heart grasped tightly in his fist. Slowly, his glassy eyes moved to the pear-like organ, bleeding through his white fingers.  
  
"So..." The voice whispered, "It is finally done..." And clenched his fist tightly, squeezing every last fluid left within the heart from its body.  
  
********A/N: DONE NOW********************************  
  
Anamaria, who had peeled herself from the ground a long moment ago, stared at the horrifying scene before her, and turned away to retch violently. The back of her chalky white head was stained with crimson blood, but she was nowhere near dead. Not so like Raphael sprawled lifelessly at her feet.  
  
As soon as her stomach had been emptied, she turned back to where her comrade stood, his frigid eyes melting back into their enchantingly demonisque ones, as they had been before. His face re-evolved into its original state, blood-and-shadow, the face she was so used to seeing.  
  
But... also with his originality, likewise came the flaws.  
  
His throat, which had been sheathed, cut itself apart once more; every wound he had received in his captivity reemerged, every cut, every scratch. His transformation seemed to have drained all effect of the yarrow, including his link to consciousness.  
  
Anamaria watched, too stunned to move, as his weathered being buckled, and gave way in the puddle of Raphael's crimson blood.  
  
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A/N: AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! 


	9. Our Fav Sith Almost Dies

A/N: Domo Arigatou everyone for your wonderful reviews! I very much appreciate them. Well, we're gradually moving onto a lot less gore, and a lot more drama; (Did I mention angst?) Some funky flashbacks, and nautical nonsense. (hehe. Alliteration.) Anyway, onto chapter nine!  
  
Chapter... you know.  
  
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A gush of blood flung itself from his painted lips, and trickled down his chin. He moaned softly, nearly undefinably, and fell hard to his broken knees, unable to stand any longer. The room was no more than a dark haze, like twirling over, and over again many times, then trying to stare at one object alone, and not its twin.  
  
Darth Maul allowed his head to loll against his chest, and saw Raphael's mutilated corpse about four feet in front of him, still bleeding. Oh drat it. Sidious would most definitely not like another man's blood staining his finely polished floors... he'd better clean it up before his master returned home. Where was that silly little cloth? By the council, it was hot in here! Did those stupid droids leave the heat on again? They knew how much he hated to be warm! Oh... wait... wasn't he just going to clean up that mess? What mess? He coughed again. Was he sick?  
  
Anamaria slowly crawled forward through the puddle of the lifeless prince's gore, so that she was but a few feet in front of her comrade's body. His eyes stared sightlessly at the corpse before him, and sweat had begun to veil every inch of his skin. She slowly reached forward with her hand, and felt his cheek. It was burning up.  
  
"Fever..." Even her soft voice echoed loudly through the silent halls. She removed her cloak, and draped it carefully over his quaking shoulders, while he made no usual complaint. His eyes, however, moved to meet hers, and his jaw trembled with febricity. They seemed to want to tell her something, but would not respond, so heavy were their owner's hurts.  
  
"Anamaria..." He mouthed her name, and she held a hand against his lips.  
  
"Shh..." The padawan hushed him gently, and her hand moved to cup his slashed cheek, "I'm right here... you mustn't speak..."  
  
And speak not, he did. Instead, he leaned into her cool, and gentle touch, so sick that he was not in his right mind. If under normal circumstances, that hand would probably be in his mouth, being chewed upon until it was nothing more than a soggy lump. But for now... he enjoyed it.  
  
Anamaria swallowed carefully, and examined his broken, beaten form. The Sith's body had been ravaged by malnutrition, and improper medical attention. If any. He looked so awful, even Death would have refused him passage into the afterlife.  
  
She felt that familiar, pitying instinct closing in around her, and knew her options were limited. The one who had just saved her life was now dying right in front of her, and she was just letting it occur. He needed medicine. And fast.  
  
"Maul..." She said carefully. He obediently snapped out of his trance, and awaited her next order. Anamaria felt like crying. What kind of discipline would it take to make someone THAT responsive? What had Sidious done to him? What had Raphael done to him? She shook it off for the moment, and went back to the task at hand.  
  
"I'm going to help you up... okay...?" He nodded as her left arm slipped under his right, and she caught it with ease, pulling him carefully over her shoulder. The Sith winced hard, but did nothing else.  
  
Who was she? This little girl sitting in front of him. No... not little. Old enough to be considered an adult, but younger than he. She was kind of pretty, too... staring at him, almost like she was... worried? Why? What was wrong with him? Her hand touched his face, kind of... softly. It was strange. And cold. A lot colder than the room. Why didn't somebody shut the damn heat off?! He'd have to have a word with those droids later on... when he felt like moving. He slowly leaned into her hand, like an abused puppy being treated in a benevolent fashion for the first time in its life. Heh... a puppy. He heard his name called, and, like the obedient dog he had been trained to be, waited for her order.  
  
The words were mixed, and slow, and... sort of like flushing them down a toilet. Speaking of toilet; he seriously felt the need to worship that porcelain God right about now; and the movement of pulling him to his feet did him in.  
  
Anamaria clumsily stood with Darth Maul supported fully against her shoulder, his overheated body warming hers, and was quite prepared to walk, when he suddenly jolted, and began to painfully dry heave. Once more, he dropped, but she did not let go of him. Some strange black fluid pumped from his abdomen, mingled absently with blood, and small amounts of bodily fluids, and the padawan began to fear fate's worst.  
  
The Sith suddenly ceased his vomiting, and a cold, dry keening began to take its place. He fell to the ground from his comrade's grasp, clutching at the floor as if he were about to fly away, and his body began to shiver violently. Gold tapered eyes clenched shut as he cried out in torment, hunched over pathetically, and shaking with exhaustion and fear. He had no idea why a tidal wave of searing agony had chosen now to rip fiercely through his whole being, but it hurt. The whole ordeal felt like every separate nerve ending was tearing from its place, and burning to a crisp.  
  
Anamaria fell to her knees before him, and grasped his quaking shoulders forcefully. Another unrequited wail tore from his throat. She immediately regretted making that move, but it was necessary to reach him. Suddenly, he blanched, stopping the cries of torment almost immediately, and his eyes snapped open. A rasping tremor issued from his pharynx, and he struggled to breathe as a thin tendril of blood wove from his way down his chin.  
  
The padawan's face went slack. A strange, gurgling sound was issuing from her friend's slit throat, and he stared at her, panicked into calmness.  
  
"No.. Oh, Jesus, no!" She cried, realizing quickly that he was suffocating. His ebony lips had become a dark shade of gray, and he stared at her wildly, pleading for help. Help she could not give.  
  
"No, no! Oh Jesus, no!" Anamaria repeated, appealing to the Savior for aid. Darth Maul slowly sank into her embrace as she held him, unable to breathe any longer. Oh well. `Tis the fate of a Sith. An accepted fate, nonetheless. At least he could feel a warm and caring touch in the last moments of his pathetic life.  
  
"No! Don't you DARE die, you stupid arse!" The padawan resorted to scolding, "Don't you DARE die!!!"  
  
"He will not die, young Jedi..." A rasping voice issued from the darkness, and Gantu the Khajiit stepped into her line of view. She stared dumbly at him for a moment, unable to say a word. Wasn't this one of Raphael's cronies?  
  
"You saw how the evil prince slit his throat, yes?" The tall cat-man slowly prowled to where the odd couple sat, one nearly about to jump the ledge of death, "Something he poured onto your friend's wound. It is Gattaca's poison. Strong stuff. But he will not die. Watch."  
  
Gantu raised a clawed hand, and smacked Darth Maul's back hard. He jerked forward violently, and Anamaria, thinking that the creature had only finished his master's job, readied the force to blow him away, but froze when a disoriented gag issued from the body below her.  
  
The Sith hurled over, and retched one more time, but disgorging along with most of the said poison: a grossly knotted blob of what seemed to be flesh. Gantu slowly went to the helpless creature's side, and tenderly pulled the Sith into his furred arms. He received little more struggle than a weak cough, and some resistance, but when he lay a hand upon his prisoner's crimson brow, Darth Maul went silent.  
  
"Vehani ewu, Kalaskein... kre domori chalas." //Thank you, Ice Prince... we will never forget.//  
  
Gantu slowly stood with the badly wounded Sith still in his arms, and his emerald eyes rested on the Jedi-in-training. "Come." He said, "I will escort you to your rooms."  
  
Anamaria nodded without a word, and stood beside him. How would Vespasian take the news?  
  
\\=:=//  
  
"I will leave you here, friend. This is the safest place in the castle for him, but you must leave soon. I fear for Kalaskein's safety, and your company's safety, as Shegorad still lives." Gantu let down his cargo slowly, allowing Anamaria to support him on her shoulder. The padawan had no idea how to thank the kind khajiit, but nodded quietly.  
  
"I have never seen a warrior of such small stature live to see such a beautiful day..."  
  
At the girl's confused stare, the cat-man smiled as well as any feline could, and motioned out of the nearest window. She gasped, startled.  
  
Across Gattaca's tree-lined horizon, one golden sun stretched her rays valiantly over the mighty plains for the first time in three years. Prince Raphael was dead, and dead with him also was the plague covering its province. His dream of a darkened world was no more, and, as such, so was the dark.  
  
"Oh..." She breathed, "It's..." Anamaria turned to confess onto their rescuer how beautiful the sunrise was, but Gantu was gone. Like he had disappeared into thin air.  
  
"Marie! What are you doing up so early?" Obi-Wan's voice wafted through the corridor, "We're ready to discuss means of truce with-" He froze, deep eyes locking finally with her injured companion, and his tanned face went slack.  
  
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A/N: *typetypetypetype* NOOO!!! I CAN'T STOP!!! 


	10. BAD OBIWAN! BAD!

A/N: Howdy again, folks! Today, Obi-Wan is going to practice his vocal skills!  
  
Chapter Ten  
  
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There was a moment of absolute silence. Obi-Wan's eyes were blank, matching his face perfectly, but, as such was the Law of the Universe, all good things must come to an end. A shaking finger was pointed at the considerably weakened Sith, and his predecessor's jaw fumbled for the proper words with which one could describe the situation.  
  
"No... not you..." He whispered eerily, "I killed you..."  
  
Anamaria seemed to know what storm was about to break from this setting, and she quickly tried to console the volcanic Jedi.  
  
"Master Obi-Wan, please listen to me..." She could not finish, for the low hum of an active lightsaber had drowned out any more words she could have said. The grieving man before her pointed to Darth Maul, and then to the floor.  
  
"Drop it..." He said simply. Anamaria stared, incredulous. Killing an unarmed foe? That was definitely not like the man she had known mere moments ago.  
  
"Obi-Wan... listen to me... He's-"  
  
"I SAID DROP IT!!!" His voice raised into a climax, and his eyes were as angry as killer bees. The tinted lightsaber in his hand whirred mockingly, and shook with suppressed rage. Anamaria felt Darth Maul stir slightly under her supporting grasp, and he coughed, sending more blood smattering onto the alabaster floor.  
  
"Obi-Wan, stop this! He needs help! Please!" She pleaded urgently.  
  
The master Jedi stared at her for a moment, face a shell of nothingness. His chest heaved with choler, and his blue(?)eyes blazed. "I WILL DIE BEFORE I SEE THIS SITH WALK FREELY ONCE MORE!!!" He shrieked, absolutely wild with anger at this point. He made do to advance on the wounded warrior, but a slow yet striking voice rapped his furtherance.  
  
"You shall do no such thing, Obi-Wan Kenobi." Vespasian (Thank God) stalked quietly from his and his padawan's quarters, quite obviously exhausted, but looking as though his good friend had not just tried to decapitate the young girl. In fact, his face was quite the mirror of contentedness.  
  
"Vespasian!!!" The human cried forcefully, motioning to the weakened duo standing a few mere feet in front of him. His friend smiled a good-natured smile, and followed his gaze. The Jedi's face fell somewhat when his eyes witnessed the current state of Darth Maul's body, and he quickly ushered Anamaria into their quarters.  
  
"Lay him on my bed, Padawan. Cover him well, and stay with him until I return." She nodded, and hobbled into the room with blood trailing in Darth Maul's wake. Vespasian turned back to his newly knighted friend, and placed a webbed hand on his shoulder. Obi-Wan jerked away.  
  
"Stop this, my friend. He deserves our hospitality-" The aquatic alien noticed how the man's eyes became dark, and angry at those words, "- because he has saved the entire republic enterprise from destruction by killing the very man we were about to make truce with. Prince Raphael was organizing an army below our very noses, and he was only waiting for that moment when we so naively walked into his trap."  
  
Obi-Wan's face slackened considerably, but the fire was still burning within his crystal eyes. "And you think that we can accept his 'apology' of killing Qui-Gon by merely repeating the process on another man? What if Raphael's demise is really our downfall?! What if he's working for the scum right now, and they're planning on attacking us?!"  
  
The azure Jedi's mouth thinned slightly, and he closed his eyes at the memory of the beaten, and scourged Sith laying helplessly in a cage. Blood... all of it...  
  
"If you had wisdom to see the PERSON who was just standing in front of you a few minutes ago, /my friend,/ then you may have noticed a few scratches... Why would a Lord torture his own servant, eh? Yes, Obi-Wan, that's right. He. Was. Tortured. Every day, every hour. Any imaginable device conceivable thrown on, consumed, or hit with. And yet here he is, after saving the life of my padawan, and the life of yours as well. If you still think, my friend, that Queen Shegorad is going to uphold her promises to us, then by all means; stay here. But Anamaria and I are leaving tonight, headed for Coruscant." (Fudge it, I can't spell!) With that, Vespasian left a thoroughly dumbfounded Obi-Wan in the finely decorated foyer, and shut the door to his quarters.  
  
###  
Anamaria hobbled clumsily across the anteroom, and into her master's, with Darth Maul limping heavily against her. His left leg was utterly useless, for any sort of pressure exerted on it sent shockwaves of blistering pain like white-hot knives up his embodiment, so here he was, depending solely upon a Jedi to help him walk ten measly feet. He didn't care, though; the fact that he was no longer in a cold, rotting dungeon did wonders on one's mood.  
  
Anamaria slowly helped him next to the bed, where a tall-backed chair sat as if predicting that she and her comrade were coming. She supported his backbone with her free hand, and assisted him in sitting carefully, so that his malnourished form would not suddenly topple onto the floor. Indeed, he did not, but let a soft moan when his torn and bleeding back came in contact with the uneven wood.  
  
Thus complete, the padawan turned, and began to pull down the coverall and sheets adorning her master's bed, but also keeping a watchful eye on the ill warrior juxtaposed to her. He remained silent for the most part, if not for a soft *plink* of sweat pitching to the floor every few seconds. She turned back to him after a moment, though, and helped him stagger unevenly to the soft bed.  
  
"Anamaria..." He stared at her so pathetically, and mouthed her name just as he had done over an hour ago in the stinking dungeons.  
  
"Shh..." She hushed him, also repeating the process by which they had just exited, "I'm right here... it's okay..." Her gentle words calmed him, and he remained silent as she slipped a pillow beneath his fractured shin. The padawan had been in situations like these before, and only righteous experience could tell her that the best way to calm a patient was to remain very quiet, for the most part, and when one did speak, it was a word of solace, and comfort.  
  
Anamaria took Darth Maul's arm, and he clutched her hand like a vice, channeling the pain into strength as she eased him down onto the pillows. She didn't mind, though. It was good that he found something to hang onto, even if it was her hand; though... his piercing claws did make her a bit nervous. Still clutching her mitt, however, he began to lapse into a full- body tremor, proceeding on to the next stage of injuries:  
  
Shock.  
  
The padawan stayed with him through it, though. She laid a cool hand on his brow, and spoke soothing words as if a child were laying before her, and not a full-grown Sith, fully capable of tearing her arm off, and stuffing it down her throat. He let a soft mewl of pain, and any implications she had just imagined were thrown out the window.  
  
"I seem to remember reading somewhere that Quinya are very fond of... oh what was it called...?"  
  
Anamaria turned sharply, and her eyes rested upon Vespasian pondering in the doorway. She smiled a bit, clearly realizing that he was on her side. "Fond of what, Master...?" She asked quietly, keeping her voice low as to not startle the ailing warrior trembling weakly next to her.  
  
"It was called... Living Water, I think. Quite healthy, actually."  
  
Darth Maul stirred slightly at the mention of that particular drink, and his movement did not go unnoticed by the two Jedi. "I think you're right about that, Master." The younger of the two stated. Vespasian let a soft smile. "Then I shall collect a cow." He paused, "Or a cat... depending on which one I see first." The Jedi was about to turn, when he noticed the feverish state Maul's infected wounds had sent him spiraling into.  
  
"Nothing a bit of cleaning up won't fix..." He muttered quietly to himself, and exited for the kitchen.  
  
Anamaria was, once more, left alone with the ailing ghost of a terribly powerful fighter, whose awful state only slipped further, and further down. Perspiration slicked his skin like a veil of shining ice, and soaked into the wet sheets below him. They had to get help quickly, or he would die before he saw another day.  
  
"Shi...loh... S-Shi... loh..." The Sith breathed weakly. Anamaria caressed his burning skin gently. Still, he kept repeating the name. Shiloh. Who was that? "Shi...loh... d-don't... please..." It was almost impossible to decipher the words coming from his mouth, they were so whispery.  
  
"Here." The padawan felt a hand on her shoulder, and something wet fell into her lap. A closer look aforementioned that it was soaking rag. "I need to wrap his leg. It may be best that you don't watch, Marie..."  
  
Vespasian was deadly serious now. If they didn't stop the infection, Maul would die slowly and painfully. Anamaria just wished that there was another, more humane way of doing it. She watched as her master brought a flask to the sick Quinya's lips, and poured the Living Water in, simultaneously massaging his throat to lower the hardy stuff into his empty stomach. He did this until a low moan signified that their patient was satisfied, then set the stalwart drink down at his bedside table, preparing for the long, and painful road to recovery.  
  
Anamaria took his place, and dabbed her friend's brow with the soaking cloth, refusing to turn her cerulean eyes away from his hollow xanthacroid ones. Vespasian lowered the bloodied sheets, and took a knife from his hilt, cutting away the remnants of Darth Maul's pants to have full access to his broken leg. He cringed, seeing the violent extent of the contagion.  
  
The Sith whimpered slightly in pain, and struggled to see what was going on. Anamaria gently pushed his head back down, though, refusing to let him witness her master's less-than-comfortable way of mending. "Tell me about Shiloh." She asked gently. Maul stared at her with his beautifully wild eyes, and croaked a hoarse response. "I... l-loved... him..." His breath was rasping, and short.  
  
Vespasian took out his flaming candle, and held the blade of his knife over it until the thing was glowing with heat. The Sith felt this, and he struggled again to see, but again, Anamaria pushed him back down, and clutched his hand, the other still stroking his face.  
  
"How much did you love him?" She begged him to continue. Darth Maul breathed hoarsely, and answered. "More... than... the s-stars..."  
  
Vespasian looked quickly at his padawan, and, seeing as how she was appropriately handling the situation, he made to hold his glowing blade over the badly hurt area.  
  
"God give me strength..." He prayed, and dug in.  
  
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A/N: As I said before, this is not a slash fic. Shiloh was not Darth Maul's lover. In fact, he wasn't in love with anyone. Get it? Got it? Good. 


	11. She can sing!

A/N: Go. Boogie.  
  
Chapter Eleven  
  
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Vespasian gritted his jaw tightly, and pressed his white-hot blade into Darth Maul's gaping wound, earning him a soft hiss of a cooling substance. He did not pause for a moment, and quickly, but skillfully began to dig out all of the dirt and grime that had built up in his patient's shin over the on-month course that he had suffered in the castle of Gattaca. He heard the Sith screech in agony; an animal-like cry that chilled him to his very bones. The infected leg he was currently trying to mend began to spasm defiantly, and he held down all of his body weight to keep any more harm from coming to the badly hurt warrior.  
  
Anamaria had no idea that such a weakened creature could possess such a potency. He struggled hard beneath her master's work, refusing to allow him to mend the embodiment Raphael had so brutally plagued. Desperately, she tried to avert his attention elsewhere, and hers as well, for the reeking stench of burning flesh was awful in the spacious room.  
  
"Darth Maul...!" She stared into his horrifying face, and called his name. The Sith, however, continued to struggle under her helping grasp. Oh, dear God, what had they called him?!  
  
"Kalaskein!!" There was silence. Maul's eyes shot open, dazed, confused, and utterly frightened, but he had stopped struggling nonetheless. His thin chest heaved with labored breaths, and the sweat seemed to be inches thick.  
  
"Kalaskein..." Anamaria repeated again, "Calm down... shh... that's right... we're only trying to help you." She took his face in her hands, and pressed her brow against his, "It'll all be over, soon... just breathe..." He listened to her. Aside from the frequent whimper of pain, he was utterly silent, and concentrated on the girl's voice, and the breath entering, then escaping his lips.  
  
Vespasian managed through nearly half of the process without any further hindrances, but when he did finally meet one, it was unforgiving.  
  
A great amount of filth was lodged grimly between the broken tibia jutting ruthlessly from his flesh, and the muscle beneath it. There was no way that he could get to it without a larger working space.  
  
"Marie..." He began gently. The padawan quickly looked up from her hunched position. "Yes, Master?" She replied. Vespasian quickly fumbled through his cloak's pocket, and brought out a worn, slightly fading handkerchief, and tossed it to the girl with a dark flavor about his eyes. When she looked at him questioningly, he explained with as few words as possible.  
  
"Stuff it in his mouth after I tie him down."  
  
Anamaria's eyes grew round, and bulbous as she realized what her caretaker was about to do. Despite her unassailable impulse to fret, and beg, however, she forced her voice to keep calm. "Is there no other way, master...? Any type of sedation we can give him...?" She asked hoarsely, for her throat was becoming clogged with tears. Vespasian gritted his lizard-like jaw, and shook his head with difficulty.  
  
"Just do as I say."  
  
He stood, and moved to the bedposts, lifting one of Darth Maul's arms against it. The amphibious Jedi cringed outwardly at the dire amount of bloodloss their patient had experienced, for he offered no resistance to Vespasian's force, and his arm was practically made of nothing but bone and flesh. As he worked, Anamaria offered words of comfort to the Sith, continuously squeezing his hand to show that she was there. Vespasian couldn't help but smile. She was always there for others, even if it meant her own personal discomfort.  
  
He finished knotting the first piece of rope, and advanced to the second hand, which was currently being grasped by his padawan. She saw what he wanted, and reluctantly let him have it, and instead moved her placated touch to his burning face. Darth Maul stared at her unblinkingly while she comforted him, as if this little girl was his only link to the mortal world.  
  
Vespasian finally finished knotting the last rope, and chanced one last look at the inseparable duo. Anamaria was still averting the Sith's attention from his wounds, and he was utterly thankful for that.  
  
"Marie..." He warned her. The girl looked up, and, understanding that he was ready to commence with the operation, took the worn piece of cloth, and gently eased it into their patient's jaw. Maul, to their surprise, did not struggle. His golden eyes were fixed hauntingly upon Anamaria's, unable to tear from their link to reality.  
  
Vespasian carefully wrapped his hands around the protruding bone, heedful of the appalling pain it could cause if he didn't use every medical skill he had ever acquired over his years as a Jedi master.  
  
"Ready...?" He breathed. Anamaria nodded, moving her weight partly over the Sith's body. "One..." His grip tightened, "Two..." The padawan held her breath.  
  
Without waiting for 'three,' the amphibious warrior's hands clenched tightly, and pulled hard on the fractured white bone. There was a series of sickening cracks, and crunches as the supportive structure reluctantly moved away from its home, and pushed the ebony skin away from its path. Darth Maul, silent until now, allowed his back to arch painfully as a muffled scream passed through his gag. If not for Anamaria's body weight holding him down, he would have probably injured himself even more from the copious amounts of thrashing his body had subjected itself to. Still, even through this, Vespasian worked his knife between the muscle and bone, hellbent on finishing what he had started.  
  
"Keep him down, Marie... I'm almost done." He assured the sapped girl. And with one long, revolting SNAP the fractured shin was properly placed, and all of the dirt removed from it. The exhausted Sith's body gave one last jerk, and fell silent, if not for his labored breathing, and almost nonexistent whimper of anguish. Anamaria quickly pulled out the gag adorning his mouth, and threw it away, for the thing had become so soiled with blood it was unusable.  
  
Falling back into her chair, the tired padawan watched in interest as Vespasian returned with his misshapen flask, and ever-so-gently held it against Darth Maul's chapped ebony lips, encouraging him to drink from it. Defiantly, the broken Sith turned away from his kindness, refusing to drain the flask until the patient-worn Jedi had to force-feed it to him. Anamaria snickered coyly as they went at it, fighting pride with pride. Eventually, though, with his hands still tied to the bedpost, the weaker of the two finally had to just give up.  
  
Sighing, Vespasian held up the drink at an angle, and ran it down his dry throat until Darth Maul could take no more, and turned away. Anamaria stood, and, one by one, began to untie the ropes encircled fervently around his wrists. She looked to her master, who was busying himself with his operational tools.  
  
"What's that stuff made of?" She asked, directing her eyes to the Living Water. Vespasian smiled as well as an amphibian could, and explained.  
  
"It's very nutritious. Probably a bit too heavy for him right now, but still very healthy. Originally, I think, one should make it out of cow's blood, and milk... but, on a planet dominated by cats, a cow wasn't that hard to find." His smile grew broader as Anamaria's face paled.  
  
A sudden knock at the door startled them both out of their conversation. Vespasian, fearing for their safety, quickly removed his lightsaber, and stalked quietly to the door. With a free hand, he turned to his padawan, and held a webbed finger to his lips in the universal sign of quiet. Indeed, the girl did just that, and positioned herself next to the bed if need be to protect the very weak, and very defenseless Sith beside her.  
  
With a roar of intimidation, the water-suited Jedi flung open his door, lightsaber activated, and the very stunned Obi-Wan barely had time to duck before it whizzed over his head. Vespasian's eyes were wide with shock, and he immediately knelt down to help his nearly decapitated friend up, apologizing all the way.  
  
"I may have been defeated, my friend, but I certainly did not ask for death!" Obi-Wan exclaimed. Anakin laughed nervously beside him, and Vespasian rubbed his head sheepishly. Well, at least the young Jedi was back to his old self. THAT much they could account for. He turned back to Anamaria, and waved, signaling that the situation was only a slight mishap.  
  
The young padawan sighed quietly as she slumped down into her chair again, exhaustion beginning to take its unwanted hold. Her head throbbed in tune to her heart, the blood pumping agonizingly over, and over again into her brain. But... no. It was no time for sleep. She had to be ready in every aspect for their escape, and journey to Coruscant, for if any of them made even the slightest error, it could mean all of their deaths. No time for sleep yet.  
  
There was very small, almost inaudible whimper beside her, and the padawan immediately whirled around, ready to help if need be. Darth Maul, with muted efficiency, was currently panting harder than a slave-driven dog, his thin chest heaving with effort to consume oxygen. Anamaria bit her lower lip in rising worry, and felt his forehead with the rear of her hand. She was troubled to find that his already-much-too-high fever had risen, at least to one-hundred and five, and the copious amounts of sweat he had been shedding were doing nothing to stop this. She quickly reinstated the soused cloth into her hand, and began to wash his face of the perspiration and grime.  
  
Anamaria's eyes slanted in compassion as the unconscious Sith began to quietly whimper once more, his body lapsing into a fit of violent shivering. She remembered once, when she was very young on Dantooine, her master's milk goat went into labor with her kids, and she was left alone with complications. Anamaria, and her fellow slave Xander were the only ones left at the house, and Tindy (as the girl had called the good-tempered animal) was frightened beyond belief with the new experience. Xander went forth to help the ailing goat while he sat his friend on the ground beside Tindy's head, and pleaded with her to help him.  
  
"But I do not know how to help!" She had cried, bursting into tears. The other slave gave her a sharp, but gentle slap, and told her what to do.  
  
"Sing a song, Marie. Any song, it matters not which one. If you keep Tindy quiet, God will help her, and her kids." And sing the girl did. In the beginning, her song was tuneless, and jumbled words, but it grew, and growing with her was the little goat's strength. She patted her, and rubbed her bulging belly, calling her a sweet animal, and good old girl, and continued to sing.  
  
Well... Darth Maul was definitely not a goat. But he was in great pain, just as Tindy was all those years ago. A broken, and scared creature who's only place in life had been brutally wrenched away; wounded and afraid just as the padawan had been. Anamaria soaked the cloth again, and caressed his face, frighteningly beautiful with all of the grime washed away. Rivulets of crimson spiking their ebony undertones, and somehow joining to form one broken visage. Truly, he could pass for Satan's brother.  
  
Again, he let an unstoppable whimper escape into the air, and again, the girl was reminded of Tindy. By the council, she didn't want to sing to him, though! Her voice was awful enough to send a deaf gungan running for cover. But... well, she didn't HAVE to sing... maybe she could just hum the tune.  
  
Clearing her throat slightly, the padawan began to sing her song with closed lips, and she was surprised to find that it didn't sound half bad. Darth Maul had quieted as well, and the only sound he made was a slight cough every few seconds.  
  
Slowly, Anamaria's song evolved, and grew louder until her fair lips moved to form words. Beautiful words.  
  
"Though we walk a heavy shadow, and our hope is nearly dead... little one, you keep on flying, like a sparrow to the end...  
  
And when the willow spurs her calling, and the moon has laid her head... when the raven starts his singing, and the sky is turning red...  
  
On this quiet, misty morning, as the moon lays down her head... when the raven starts his singing, I'll be homeward bound again...  
  
We'll be homeward bound again..."  
  
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A/N: HAHAHAHA!!! I AM NOT DEAD!!! See, over spring break, I went with my good friend Nariana to her aunt's house, and I think they're Amish, but oh well. Anyways, after I got back, I was immediately grounded by my parents under mysterious circumstances, and they refused me time to our computer. So, here I am. Chapter eleven up soon. (Song above was based on Simon and Garfunkle's Homeward Bound Again) 


	12. The Bloody Rose of Sharon

A/N: Sorry. Forgot to mention last chapter that the little scene with the goat was inspired by the 'Midwife's Apprentice.' Very good book. I recommend reading it. Oh, yes, and the King and I (the play we did at my school) was a great success! We made about five-hundred dollars off of tickets from the first two nights! WOOOOOOOHOOOOO!!!!  
  
Chapter Twelve #############################################################  
  
The Sith had gone completely silent. His back was rigid, and beads of sweat went unnoticed as they toppled from his gaunt cheekbones, and onto the pillow beneath him. Anamaria, having just finished with her song, was glad that he had become still, but confused as to why he was so stiff.  
  
"Dar- Kalaskein?" She caught herself just in time. Vespasian's and Obi- Wan's muffled voices drifted into the room. Their words were inaudible, but there was talk of danger, and the Jedi's voices were low. She lifted her head to stare from the pronounced window, and noted that the sun had risen, and already seemed to be a few inches from the place of its origin. She allowed this no further thought, and settled her attention on the seemingly lifeless Darth Maul. In fact, if it was not for the continuous rise and fall of his willful lungs, she would have thought him dead.  
  
'Please... please keep fighting...' She prayed, 'Don't stop yet...' Her soft fingers brushed gently against his gaunt cheeks, and traveled slowly up his prone, but smooth brow, still burning with fever. Anamaria marveled at how someone so hot had not yet consumed himself and the bed linen in flames. Despite the heat emitting from his own body, however, the ill Sith had begun to shiver again. She pulled up a second blanket, and laid it over his unconscious form (though it was not unconscious for long).  
  
He suddenly began to gag, and cough, trying desperately to convey precious, life-giving oxygen into his lungs, as if the whole suffocating scenario was to happen again. The padawan knew better, though. She quickly slid her arm underneath his bony shoulders, and pulled him up into a sitting position, where he proceeded to heave every ounce of nourishment left within his body into a wastebin. Between the violent intervals, he struggled to breathe as he had always been taught, but Anamaria was there for him, and she comforted him through it all. Her gentle hands rubbed his back in the places which had healed from the whips, and she hummed to soothe his aching body.  
  
"K-Kill... me... Just kill... me..." Darth Maul muttered incoherently. He had lapsed into a fit of shaking again, the upheaval of the victuals in his guts just too much for him to handle in his weakened state.  
  
"Marie?" Vespasian's wedge-shaped head poked through the door. His padawan looked up, startled at her master's sudden appearance, but waited for his questions, nonetheless.  
  
"Yes sir?" She asked. The amphibious jedi stepped into the room, and his eyes grew in a measure as they noticed the unwell Sith heaving dryly with half of his head in a bucket.  
  
"This does not bode well... We must leave now, and go directly to Coruscant, where we can explain this to the council, and seek medical attention for him." He nodded once in the direction of the still-vomiting Darth Maul, who emitted a considerably painful gag, and began to gasp heavily, finally complete with the uncomfortable process. Anamaria gently placed her hands behind his shoulders once more, and slowly, very slowly, eased him down onto the pillow again.  
  
"Above all else," Vespasian came to her side as she wrung out the cloth anew, "We must keep him from moving throughout the entire trip. I've brought a bedroll to place him in, but he must, absolutely MUST not move. Any type of physical strain could injure him further."  
  
Anamaria nodded curtly in understanding as she tenderly bathed his scarred neck (by some strange force, perhaps a regenerative effect of the yarrow, his slit throat had healed, and there was merely a long cicatrix to proclaim a knife had ever touched there). Darth Maul exhaled slowly as the fluid relief washed over his burning skin, and, to his caretaker's great surprise, the eyes that had once stared down a Hutt slowly peeled open, and stared directly at the young girl who wanted him in a way that no one else had.  
  
"Angel..."  
  
His voice was no more than a terribly weak breath, but she heard it. She watched his chapped, dry lips form the word, and she felt the utter longing on that one phrase. A longing for love; a place to belong among others. A want. A NEED. He wanted to die, and be free, but his training would not allow it. His experience with evil, heartless masters who spat on him like dirt, and treaded on his fragile soul like dirt would not grant any inkling of trust towards any other living person.  
  
"A-Are... you... taking me... t-to... die...?"  
  
"Shh... I'm not taking you anywhere but home." She replied, and stroked his eyelids so that they closed expectantly. The Sith exhaled with difficulty, too far-gone in pain to know that the girl who was touching him was a Jedi- in-training.  
  
"Home..." He breathed, "T-To... Shiloh..."  
  
Vespasian removed his makeshift sleeping bag, and pried it open until every loose button and string was unlatched, or untied. He motioned for Anamaria to turn around, and removed the rest of his dirty clothing (they did not want him to become too hot). This done, he gently pushed the upper flap of the bedroll beneath Darth Maul's nearly severed leg, and then the other (though not unscathed) healthier one. This accomplished, he motioned to his padawan as if he was lifting a weight, and in return, Anamaria lifted the ill Sith's upper torso to pertain a better working angle for her master. Vespasian easily slid the open bedroll under his patient's ripped, and bleeding back, slowly bringing it up to his shoulders before it was zipped tightly, then buckled, and tied so skintight, it seemed faintly to resemble a body bag.  
  
Darth Maul whimpered modestly at the new material stinging his flawed, bleeding body, and struggled to curl up into a reclusive ball, only wishing to elude the pain, and die quietly with no further hindrances. He hated this retched humiliation, and prayed to anybody willing to listen, that if they would grant him a quick death, he would worship them forever. However, despite this humane proclamation, what came was not death, but a strange peace. Something of a ghostly substance flooding his subconscious mind, and the unshed fear accompanied by macabre pain was seemingly no more. A voice inside his mind trickled to life, and it urged him; strengthened him.  
  
'I'm here for you. I have never abandoned you. Your life is safe in my hands, and I will keep it there.' It said. Darth Maul nodded slowly, understanding finally the concept of his one true friend. Indeed, it was not Sidious that had saved his life in that vast shaft on Naboo, but Shiloh. Shiloh was there for him then as he was now, and his unending love was imminent. He had saved the retched Sith for his glorious cause, and he was surely alive to do these things. Things of utmost sincerity, and to show his workers that there WAS a path to the light; that it WAS possible for a dark creature to taste golden-honeyed illume. If only with love.  
  
Anamaria watched in compassion as the badly hurt Sith quietly whimpered, and tried desperately to curl into a compact ball. Frailty, and such excruciating pain were not things he had become comfortable with, despite the fact that he was a very strong warrior. She ran her fingers along the unholy blood paradigms aligning his ebony visage, and watched quietly as Vespasian hurriedly packed their things. Obi-Wan and Anakin were watching outside of the door for any unexpected visitors (meaning queen Shegorad) and ready to give an alarm if need be.  
  
This was about as bad as it could get.  
  
Then they'd be home free.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
A/N: *Sigh* yet another incredulously short chapter. But, if you guess who Shiloh is, then I'll give you a chocolate chip! *hint* the title of the chapter is a clue.  
  
Nannon: I just want to thank you right now for reviewing graciously: this story which I once so abhorred. If you have a username, I'd like to read some of YOUR work, too! Please keep reading. You're, like, my last thread of motivation for writing this. Thanks again! 


	13. Chapter thirteen

A/N: Yet another chapter cometh.  
  
Chapter Thirteen  
  
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The tables were set. By one O' clock, they had packed their things as well essential food items for the long trip back to Coruscant, and each remaining member of the anxious Jedi team was waiting for Obi-Wan to fly their reasonably large ship, codename Innuendo, against the balcony sill for their planned escape.  
  
Vespasian paced with a blunt chin in his webbed hand, while Anamaria watched him, her frequent throat-clearing betraying the fact that she was as nervous as any of them. Anakin sat deftly in a chair beside the bed, his back stiff as a board, but fidgeting often due to the action that he was sitting right next to a mass murderer, and, consequentially, the one who had slain his idol: Qui-Gon Jinn. The young ten-year-old was oblivious to the fact, however, that the very same murderer had supposedly saved his life in a futuristic sense.  
  
"Ana...?" He questioned in a hushed tone, like a frightened child calling to its mother in the dark. His hands wrung continuously in a nervous gesture, and the silence was threatening to consume him. Anamaria, in turn, appealed to meet him, her eyes welcoming, but only as anxious as any other's eyes were. Without a word, the little boy crawled into her arms, and held her tightly, expecting no such gesticulation in return, but quite surprised, nonetheless, when the young padawan squeezed him tightly.  
  
"It's okay, Ani... we're going home..." She reassured him, whispering gently into his ear, just as though his mother were whispering lullabies when he was a baby. She sang so sweetly. He missed her voice very much, and wished sometimes that he had refused to leave without her. But then, he had to remind himself that one day he would see her again, and free her from the wickedness, and sinful act that was slavery. No, he would free EVERY oppressed being from the jaws of slavery. His friends, his caretakers, and everyone else.  
  
"Ana..." He asked, curling up in her embrace, "Do you ever feel lonely...?"  
  
Anamaria cocked her head gently in his bushy hair, her eyes gentle with a suppressed calm. Anakin could be such an enigma at times. Then again, there was talk of him being the Chosen One, who would redeem all Jedi in due time. But as the young girl looked down at the little shivering bundle in her arms, she found it difficult to imagine him as the Savior of Light. The little child was just that: A little child.  
  
"Yes, Ani... Sometimes I miss my mother, too..." She answered softly, rocking him as if he was her own son. But... Anamaria could never have children. At the mere age of six, any inkling of female sex organs had been removed to ready her for... IT. Even then, she shuddered at the thought.  
  
'Thank God for Watchiwata's death... may his damned soul rot in Hell...' She imagined viciously. Nobody that evil deserved pity. The white Padawan imagined him in the ninth canto of Hell, chewed upon by Satan for the rest of eternity.  
  
'Serves him right, that no-good, perverted, rat-sucking, child-molesting, slave-trading...'  
  
It was here that she realized the room had become completely silent.  
  
Anamaria whirled around to face Vespasian, and an immediate sense of fear overwhelmed her. The Jedi had stopped pacing in mid-step, his foot caught in the limbo between air and floor, and his almond eyes as wide as saucers. He was staring at the door with an utterly absolute expression of terror, as if some unseen censor had evaporated through the entree. Anamaria, in fearful curiosity, opposed him, and turned to stare in his place.  
  
Red eyes stared back at her through the porthole.  
  
The padawan's breath hitched in her throat, and she immediately began to panic. Oh, sweet Jesus, no... it was too soon! Obi-Wan had just left, oh God!  
  
Quickly, she placed Anakin back on his feet, ordering him to the edge of the window lattice, where the missing Jedi would arrive with the ship. Her throat was tight with panic, and it hurt to breathe. Vespasian hurled himself at his lightsaber, propped heavily upon the night stand, and he whirled on his heels, though the weapon had not been activated to needlessly draw attention. There was still a slim chance that the Khajiit had not seen them.  
  
Now the room was utterly silent. Nothing moved. Not a thing breathed. Beads of sweat echoed as they splattered upon the ground, flowing from the padawan's forehead. She wondered briefly if they were going to die. If they were going to be brutally murdered in place, then dumped in that stinking tomb.  
  
The thing's eyes swivelled, and stared directly. At. Her.  
  
"ANAMARIA!!!"  
  
The poor girl jumped out of her skin as Obi-Wan's smooth voice penetrated the barrier of silence. She panted roughly as Innuendo perched precariously directly outside of the window, and the said Jedi held out a hand for the first passenger to come aboard.  
  
BANG!!!  
  
"ANAKIN FIRST!!!" Vespasian bellowed wildly. The door had begun to jerk rhythmically as the Khajiit on the other side began to ram it with their petit bodies. Anamaria quickly summoned the small, shaking padawan to her side, and helped him up on the window lattice. Obi-Wan was a good four feet away from the window itself, making it extremely difficult to board such a little boy onto it.  
  
The Jedi master quickly strained his arm out as far as it could go, realizing the danger immediately. Anamaria balanced her young friend, trying to ignore the snapping hinges from the door. Anakin was shaking with fear, and tears formed in his eyes.  
  
"I CAN'T REACH!" He cried over the noise of the huge ship. Obi-Wan strained further to his padawan's arm, and in one desperate movement, caught him as he jumped the length. The Jedi quickly pushed him back, and called for the next passenger.  
  
Anamaria spun on her heel faster than a top, and dashed clumsily toward the bed, where a prone Darth Maul lay unconscious. Vespasian quickly fell in with her, forgetting the danger pounding just a few meters away from them. He looked up at her.  
  
"One, two, three!" They heaved the injured creature from the bed, Anamaria at his ankles, and her master at his shoulders. Another crack signified that they hadn't much time left.  
  
'Dammit, hurry!' She screamed within the confines of her mind. The door was a mere inch from completely splintering. They could see the outlines of the Kahjiit throwing themselves against it with all of their strength, and she hurried, panicking herself into an adrenaline rush.  
  
With their combined power, both master and padawan were able to push the unconscious Sith into Obi-Wan's waiting arms, and the knight quickly grabbed his shoulders, adjoining support. Anamaria let go of her comrade's ankles, allowing them to be held by Vespasian as she prepared to jump into the ship.  
  
"Godspeed, Marie!!!" He cried over the Innuendo's exhaust. She gave him a nervous smile, and propelled herself from the windowsill with a mighty heave, utterly alleviated to feel a floor beneath her feet. She quickly joined Obi-Wan, and grabbed Darth Maul's shoulders, readying to lift him into safety.  
  
CRASH!!!!!  
  
The sickening crack of splintering wood echoed in her ears as she saw an army of Khajiit come pouring through the bedroom door. Obi-Wan's eyes grew wide in panic, and he screamed for Vespasian to jump.  
  
The amphibious jedi whirled heavily to face his attackers, quickly advancing towards him, and then to his family on the ship.  
  
They wouldn't survive...  
  
In one fluid movement, he shoved Darth Maul's feet toward the two people waiting for them, and whipped out his lightsaber, invoking it with a surge of electric-green heat.  
  
"Master?!" Anamaria cried, fear overpowering her. Suddenly, she realized the moment his lightsaber activated...  
  
"MASTER!!!" Her voice shrieked in the darkening sky. She pushed herself up, and prepared to jump back, when a pair of strong arms grabbed her.  
  
Vespasian stood in proper stance as the Khajiit wickedly drew their vibro- blasters, and aimed. He paid no heed to the frantic cries coming behind him, nor the dark element which seemed to swoop over him. With a warcry of rage, he shot towards them with lightning speed.  
  
"DIIIIIEEEEE!!!!!"  
  
"NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!" Anamaria screamed at the pinnacle of her lungs. She thrashed wildly in Obi-Wan's grasp, her eyes violent with primitive rage. Her hair flailed everywhere, and she shrieked like a wild animal, kicking, and screaming.  
  
THUK  
  
Vespasian let a small gasp escape his lips as the first shot hit him. Odd... he didn't feel anything... more shots were fired, and yet all he felt was an indescribable bliss. Nothing... just... cloud nine... Sleep promised itself to him as he fell to his knees, and chanced one last look at his ship as it began to fade from his tiring vision.  
  
"Hn... Good-night, world..." He whispered, and gave himself to the darkness.  
  
"NOOOOOOO!!!! MASTER!!!!" Anamaria shrieked violently, and thrashed insanely in Obi-Wan's arms, "VESPASIAN!!!! COME BACK!!!!! MAAAAASTERRRRRR!!!!" A wild scream let loose from her throat. She kicked, and howled, and tears streamed down her cheeks, chin, and neck, and Anakin sat, staring dumbly at the entire affair.  
  
Obi-Wan put up with it, though. He put up with it until he could get an arm around her, and slapped the girl. Hard. It wasn't to be mean, it was just to calm her down.  
  
Anamaria sank to her knees, sobbing from the very pits of her chest. Low wails tore from her heart, and her whole body shook with exhaustion. Obi- Wan sank down next to her, and did something absolutely impossible.  
  
He took the girl into his arms, and cried with her.  
  
"Shh... shhh... calm down, Marie..." he choked quietly. The padawan buried her head in his shoulder, and wept openly. The said body part need not wait long before it was soaked with tears.  
  
"Da-addy, daddy..." She whispered, sobbing, "I l-love you-ou da-ddy... I-I l-love you-ou..." Her contracting diaphragm contorted the words into several more pronunciations, and her righteous sorrow was making the poor child suffer tenfold.  
  
"Shh... Shh... it's alright, Marie... calm down... shhh..." Obi-Wan soothed her, "Anakin... put the ship on autopilot to Coruscant..." He said over her shoulder, and slowly picked the sobbing girl up. Anakin watched behind his back as his master quietly carried her into her quarters, laid her upon her bed, and shut the door. There were still tears in his eyes as he came back.  
  
The Jedi's stare averted to Darth Maul, lying helplessly encased within a steaming cocoon of cotton.  
  
"I hate you..." He whispered venomously, "But Vespasian didn't. I'm only finishing what he started..."  
  
And with a heavy sigh, Obi-Wan lifted the small warrior into his arms just as he had Anamaria a moment ago (though he was not as gentle) and traveled to his deceased friend's sleeping quarters, where the bed lay fresh and neat, just as he had left it over two weeks ago. Softly, the wounded Sith was placed on his bed, the sheets unraveled, and the jedi's rump sat in a chair. He stared a long, long while at Darth Maul, who's only sign of life was the rise and fall of his broken chest, and then to the sky.  
  
'Vespasian... are you watching from heaven...?' A smile split his lips, 'I hope you're proud of me...'  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~  
  
A/N: ^______^ 


	14. No flames, please

A/N: I was wondering what you all were thinking on the last chapter. ^__^  
  
Chapter Fourteen  
  
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Anamaria woke several hours later to a cold dark space. For a moment, her mind began to panic, seizing control of her to intend that she thought herself in a closed-out place, and she felt her breath quicken. But wait...  
  
Her hand fumbled clumsily, and found the linking chain to the lamp upon her bedside table. Light flooded the room, revealing that she was not in a closet, but instead in her quarters. On the Innuendo. Alone.  
  
For a moment, the girl wondered why she was on the ship in the first place, but the memories slammed her like a sack of bricks. Vespasian was dead. Her world had been shattered. Anamaria clapped a hand to her mouth as the tears pushed themselves up from her sinuses again. Her father, who saved her life at the tender age of eight. Who nurtured, and cared for her as she grew up. The same man who disciplined her with patience, and held her when she cried.  
  
He. Was. Dead.  
  
~*~*~*~*~  
  
Bliss.  
  
It swirled, and churned in the ever-echoing abyss that was his mind, burning coals too hot for the skin into his subconscious. Everything around him was a black, smouldering rasp of charcoal hope, kindled with the strike of a fallen match, and each gurgling breath was a subtle chance for survival. Hate, greed, lust, vengeance, all-too-far for what one mind could fathom, but between these primitive emotions, there was a trickle of white light. Something forgotten a long, long time ago.  
  
His whole person was a longing for breath. Each willful attempt was made perfect by some unseen censer, or an even more powerful force of which none knew existed. A wonderful feeling returned to him, and that was the arresting grasp of the force which had abandoned him so long ago, and, like a traitorous dog reverting back to the master it had bitten, so was the force to he. It perpetrated itself to his every being, urging him with perfumed strength to continue a cumbersome battle for life, and manifested itself within his longing body like the dry soil soaks water.  
  
No more chains...  
  
No more whips...  
  
Bliss.  
In a peaked facet, it was like seeing himself anew. Without a ravenous hunger to be accepted by those he held worthy to be loyal, life was unstressed. Certainly, there were confessions, and other ramblings to be made, but he was free. Free, like a cotton blossom to be taken by the destiny called wind, and go where it pleased. This... this was life. He only wished that his light-starved eyes would open, in a shadowed request to observe himself as this new creature.  
  
'Well, you're free.'  
  
'Yep.'  
  
'Free as a bird.'  
  
'Yep.'  
  
'What are you going to do now?'  
  
'Sleep off whatever massive hangover I just experienced.'  
  
'Really?'  
  
'I though you were going to leave me alone...'  
  
'Nope.'  
  
'I'd really, REALLY like to sleep.'  
  
'Okay.'  
  
'...'  
  
'What?'  
  
'Go away.'  
  
'Okay. Bye.'  
  
Tangled thorns, and flowers, all standing in a bunch. But to their heart's unconscious dreams, they cannot live as such. Little red chrysanthemums, and rose's sharpened spines. They realize where their true fate lies, but in the end they die.  
  
~*~*~*~*~  
  
A fitful sleep engulfed her brain that night, but her dreams were those of prosperity, and happiness. It stationed her far away from whatever Hell she had just experienced.  
  
Anamaria first dreamed that she was standing on a riverbank, and all sorts of beautiful flowers surrounded her. The sky was pink, and the grass was blue, and a fish popped out of the water with Vespasian's head. She laughed. Then, Anakin came out of the ground, all dressed in black. Huge wings sprouted from his shoulders, but they had fallen to the ground at his feet, twisted, and broken. They were also black. He smiled, though. That impish smile which every boy cannot hide.  
  
Then, in her second dream, she imagined herself on a planet not unlike Tattooine. She was washing dishes in a stone sink, and her belly bulged with child. Outside of the window, a sandstorm of flower petals raged, and several pod racers flew by. She waved, and they waved back.  
  
Last of all, in her third dream, she saw herself on a lush planet, wet with morning dew. A white sun was rising, and it was very quiet. She strained to listen for any sound, but it was a fruitless attempt. Suddenly, a mango plopped into her hands. Anamaria took a bite, and it tasted like fish. She took another bite, and it tasted like grapes. The wind blew, and it rushed about her body like wrappings, carrying with it: a voice. She strove to hear it, but only the last words came to her ears before she woke up.  
  
'They realize where their true fate lies, but in the end they die.'  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~  
  
"Master?"  
  
"Hold fast, Anakin. I'm putting the ship into overdrive. Coruscant's five day's worth of flying, and we need to report this to Yoda. Fast."  
  
'Anamaria still hasn't awoken, and that dunderhead Sith is dying... God, what have I gotten us into?'  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~  
  
A/N: Okee dokee. Yeah, this is a weird one. I hope that this chapter is better than the last few have been. I'm typing in lightspeed, now, and trying to make the chapters equally good. Sorry if I've been taking so long, though. I have been very busy with preparing other stories for publishment, and the strain is killing me. ^__^;;;  
  
FREAK: Well... hm... I really don't know whether to take that comment as derogatory, or encouraging, but if there's something wrong with my story, please let me know. Cuz, well... I'm fifteen. I'm not perfect. (Just check my report card!) @_@ 


	15. The Healing Begins

A/N: Okay, the story's gonna get really hurtcomfort from here on out. Sorry for those of you who wanted more gore, and stuff, but that part's done. If you want Darth Maul torture, go write it yourself.

* * *

It had, in all probability, been many hours since she had last awoken. Anamaria felt anything but to want to get up, though. In truth, she felt more like drinking arsenic, and spontaneously combusting than showing her face to her friends. Little wonder. She knew that getting up, and perhaps distracting the memory of her dead master would be a healthy activity, however.

Kalaskein was still in need of her care, as well.

Hn... it was funny how she was starting to think of him as Kalaskein now, and not Darth Maul. He WAS a mortal being, after all.

Anamaria hoisted herself from the coverall, and sat with her dark legs dangling from the side of her bed. Just like she used to do when she was little... so long ago... Just a vivid memory, now. A memory of unquenchable suffering, and humiliation that she had not understood as a child. Humiliation of giving her body to a man she never knew in her life.

At the naive age of seven...

No. No more. Not that. She needed to concentrate on matters at hand. For all she knew, Obi-Wan had probably thrown the poor sith into the storage chamber. Anamaria smiled slightly at the thought. Oh well... such was their lot.

Pushing the memory of Vespasian's face from her mind, she accomplished the same task with the bed.

* * *

It was a strange feeling... being hot and cold at the same time. The entire area surrounding him was doused into disrepair, and yet he felt too hot to even move. Oh, and bury the thought of opening his eyes. Something sticky, and crusted locked them together, denser than mud, and blood combined.. Nevertheless, he channeled what strength he could into that area, and violently forced them open.

By the council, he wished he hadn't.

Light poured like an unwanted waterfall over everything in the room, and that meant EVERYTHING. Corners were bathed in its unwanted essence, and even the void of space outside looked white. Darth Maul immediately groaned, and shut his throbbing eyes, tossing his aching head to the left in a vain attempt to be rid of this maddening torture... Wait.

Torture?

Immediately, his eyes snapped back open, and he cried out in agony. Geez! How idiotic could he get?! Finding the brightness too much, now, he sat up, and felt his ribs push together. That was enough. He tossed back into his laying position, and, lo and behold, his pounding head slammed into the back wall. Darth Maul let a sharp yelp of pain, and sat very still in that awkward position; aching and hurting and quite ready to die.

Cold, gentle hands touched his shoulders, and the Sith flinched out of instinct, straining to keep away from what he knew was coming. The hands were persistent, though, and gently eased him at his own comfortable pace back onto the bed. Something cool, wet, and soft pressed against his brow.

"Nggh..." He groaned.

"You're welcome." A voice replied. He knew that voice. Somewhere in the confines of his dark mind, he remembered that voice. A girl... A white girl...

"Y-You... I... know... you..." He rasped. A paroxysm of coughs halted his speech, and again, his obviously broken costae ground together like rocks.

"Shh... hey, easy there... Don't talk right now." Her voice was soothing, and mellow, and he obeyed. Something hard pressed against his lips, and the girl's voice invaded his ears again.

"Drink." It was water.

Darth Maul, again, obeyed silently, and sipped the liquid slowly. It glided down his raw throat, and into his empty stomach, surprising him so suddenly, that he began to choke, and clutched what was left of his abdomen tightly. Cramp. Cramp. CRAMP. The bile rose into his throat, burning it mercilessly. Hands lifted his upper body, and he began to heave violently into what seemed to be a bucket of sorts. God, how many times had this happened...?

The soft, wet, and cold thing moved down the back of his neck, and he shivered convulsively at the touch. Oh yes... THIS was great. Here he was, blind, beaten, and broken, and CODDLED no less. Har har. Warm, squishy lovey-dovey feelings for a poor, pathetic Sith. He growled viciously, but in his weakened state, it sounded more like a cute purr. The girl chuckled sweetly, and dabbed his sweating skin with the utmost care.

"I expected this much. You threw up most of the Living Water, too. Do you remember when you last ate?" Her voice was gentle, and she spoke slowly in comforting tones. Maul, in some twisted, psychotic need to please her, thought long and hard about that question. Hm... well, a week ago, the guards gave him some maggoty bread... Didn't even touch it. About a month ago, he stopped eating altogether... Just water...

"I'm guessing that they didn't treat you too well in there..." Her tone now was pitying, and she eased him back down onto the pillow. Dammit! He hadn't even realized he had been talking!

"You... Y-You..." His voice was failing.

"Shh... you need to rest," The girl whispered, laying that dab-blasted freaky wet thing on his forehead again. No! He didn't need to rest! He needed to escape! No more coddling! No more-

What the-?

A voice drifted into his ears; soft, mellow, and comforting. The hum of a simple tune he recognized from so long ago... A name came to mind, yet distant... A Jedi... No! No, not a Jedi; a Padawan... Prison... Death... The Whelp...

"Whelp!!" He cried, completely forgetting about the pain, and shot up with his sleep-deprived eyes wide open. He was quite surprised to find the room dimmed to a comfortable level, and the familiar face of the white-haired girl staring wide-eyed before him. Then, the agony began.

It first, unsurprisingly, began with his ribs. The searing fire of overuse, and abuse flared to life, and when he gasped heavily, his back (which, as you know, is pretty much skinless) seared in uncontrollable agony. Barely formed scabs tore apart with the undesired movement, and the Sith scarcely contained a shriek of pain as he fell back on his bony arms.

Anamaria, for the third time in thirty minutes, grasped his shoulders tightly, and, inch by scant inch, relieved him of his struggle. He hissed with a clenched jaw as his tender, and just-healing skin came in contact with the soft surface of his bed. She noticed this, and changed his overall position just so, until he was laying comfortably on his side.

Now, staring at his bare back, the padawan saw the full extent of what Raphael had so brutally attempted to accomplish. There was not one inch of skin that was unmarred by his cruel whips, and most of those awful welts were inflamed, or clogged with dirt. Anamaria stared gravely, and rather sadly, for these wounds she would have to clean as well.

"You... You came... back... f-for... me..."

The padawan lifted her head, surprised, and found those disturbing, yet amazing eyes staring halfway into her own. Maul's face was a bitter contortion of raging pain, and hurt, but his voice, mellow, and deep, spoke differently. Anamaria gave him a gentle smile, and removed the bottle of alcohol from her medicine case. "Of course I came back for you... I would never leave you to die there..."

He began to respire deeply, his gently curved waist rising, and falling with each breath taken. It seemed almost as if the injured Sith was preparing to speak once more, and yet, his weak body would not allow it. Anamaria addressed his tense shoulders, and ran her hand gently down his unscathed torso. His skin was so soft... like touching fine silk. His breath hitched as she touched a rather nasty bruise, and he tensed once more. By any maker, he must have been suffering from one nasty virus, or else he would have been halfway across the room, snarling and spitting with everything he had left.

Anamaria frowned sadly, not in the least prepared to do this. Her training with medical procedures was heavily limited, and, as such, she barely had but a clue as to how to continue with his other, much more grievous wounds. The most she could do now was clean out the visible cuts, and hope that Obi-Wan was hurrying at top speed to Coruscant.

'Alright,' she thought, 'his back... eh... probably hurts... should see to that quickly. Needs water... dehydrated to the point of shriveling up like a prune... heh... no! Get back on track!' Carefully, she placed a hand on his eyelid, and lifted it, checking his pupils. 'Dilating... high fever...' The padawan spied a small stream of blood trickling down his chin, 'internal bleeding... strange... pneumonia? No... he's not coughing...'

Relaxing for a moment, she puzzled over this curious circumstance while her patient tried his best to seem loose, and unaware. In truth, his nonexistent muscles were contracting, and expanding in an extremely painful manner, and every time they loosened, he felt another wave of sweat perspire from his body. Really, it was rather uncomfortable.

Anamaria, her eyes drawn and dark, chose an old, but sterile cloth from her medicine case, and soaked it thoroughly with her bottle of pure Therusinnian alcohol. The Sith was still asleep, breathing raspily, but breathing nonetheless. It was good enough for her. She pressed the dressing against a particularly deep shoulder wound, and he jerked sharply in pain, immediately aroused from his restless sleep. The girl quietly apologized, running her free hand down his unmarred skin in a soothing gesture.

Almost instantly the cut began to bubble, trapping dirt and other various anomalies in its killing embrace. Anamaria turned the cloth over, and wiped away the excess solution. Again, she addressed another cut near his waistline, and Maul could not stifle a hiss as the medicinal drink burned away the accumulated infection. His fingers curled around the bloodied sheets, and wrung themselves until his knuckles turned white with pressure. He could barely contain his cries of agony, piled up against the instinct to move, and the additional pain caused by his broken leg wasn't making things any better.

But the last infectious wound she handled was just too much. It was a deep gash, running from the curve in his stomach to his upper right shoulder, caused by Raphael's knife after another hopeless torture session. It was, by far, the worst external injury he had received aside from his crushed limb. He could not stifle a gut-churning moan as it was gently swabbed with the solution, but when Anamaria was forced to push down deeper to remove all of the dirt, he was sure that his cries of agony could have reached the recesses of outer space.

As soon as she was done, Maul felt thoroughly humiliated. That was the first time he had ever screamed while being doctored, and it made him feel hopelessly miserable and worthless. Screaming was a sign of abasement, and weakness among the Sith, and for their masters it was humiliating. He, like the others, was broken out of the habit by excruciating training, and healed with the most painful methods possible. Pain, like the force, became a Sith's ally.

He listened, heart still pounding, chest still heaving, as Anamaria moved about the small room, replacing, and removing various items with quick precision, and was back at his side in less than a minute. She was smiling in that gentle manner, her azure eyes bright with pride as she placed a cool hand on his cheek.

"That was very brave of you..." Was all she said before she began to softly wrap his torso.

Darth Maul did not reply.

* * *

A/N: Yeah, you all are probably like, "WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN, YOU IDIOTIC WRITER?!" Well, it all began when our computer crashed. It took, like, a freaking month before the hardware guys finally fixed it, and then my mother decided that we were going to get high-speed internet for the stupid laptop, so I've basically been cut off from since May of last spring. Plus, school has started and I've been busy drawing fanart for my worthless website (which, by the way, should hopefully be up by December). NEVER FEAR, THOUGH!!! I HAVE NOT NEGLECTED MY DUTIES AS AN AUTHORESS, AND THE NEXT CHAPTER OF "MY LONELY" SHOULD BE DONE BY NOVEMBER!!! WAHEY!


	16. Realization

A/N: Haha! Hope you all like the latest installation!

* * *

Chapter Sixteen

Obi-Wan Kenobi, Jedi master, and caretaker of what could be considered the most powerful Padawan in history, sighed as he fingered the controls of his beloved ship. Coruscant was still many light-years away, and by the looks of the thin white finger hovering between full, and empty, he calculated that they would run out of fuel before they even moved past Dagobah.

Obi-Wan looked over his shoulder, and beheld the sleeping form of his apprentice. It was so hard to believe that a child so innocent, and young would become the Chosen One; the Jedi, who wasn't even into his teens, that would surpass even Master Yoda. The Jedi who was supposed to have been trained by Qui-Gon Jinn...

Immediately, his anger was piqued, and he felt the arm of his seat bend somewhat.

Qui-Gon had not deserved to die. He was supposed to live, and train Anakin to his full potential, not Obi-Wan. He could barely control his emotions, let alone teach a child how to do so. He wasn't ready for such an awesome responsibility.

Obi-Wan had prayed for weeks after his master's funeral. He had prayed to whatever deity there was in the lonely void of space that for just one day, he could be with his master once more. Just speak, and hear his voice, and feel the comforting aura that wove around his being. But no...

He had been dumped with the murderer. Darth Maul, Kalaskein, whoever the hell he was; he wasn't worthy of an honorable Jedi's help. He wasn't worthy of a girl as sweet, and naive as Anamaria. He wasn't even worthy to lick the soles of Obi-Wan's shoes.

'Perhaps...' came a rebellious voice in the back of his head, 'it is YOU who is unworthy...'

Obi-Wan felt his grip on the steering controls relax slightly, and his shoulders go slack. His blue eyes darkened, then glistened as he felt that familiar pressure in the back of his throat, but he didn't cry. He was done crying for all of those lives that had been lost- Qui-Gon, Vespasian, and too close to Anamaria for his liking.

_Vespasian would have wanted me to forgive him..._ He thought shamefully, _Qui-Gon would have told me that no creature in the entire universe is born of pure evil. It is guidance that makes a man who he is, and unfortunately, not all men are guided toward the light._

Anakin groaned behind him, and turned on his side.

Obi-Wan placed his hand on his forehead, and leaned heavily into his limb. He was thinkingPondering. Speculating the pros and cons.

_It takes great strength to sacrifice your own well-being for that of your enemy's._

He sighed, and closed his eyes. Qui-Gon had told that to him last year, when Naboo's gungan army had joined forces with the city, and defended their enemies at great cost. Vespasian had said that Darth Maul had nearly given his own life to save Anamaria's. And he paid for it. Even if they did manage to save his life, would he ever be able to fight on that leg again?

Obi-Wan outwardly cringed. Even he could not withstand that much pain. A broken leg was one thing, but daily torture, and gruesome interrogations were not his ideal scenarios of a vacation in Dantooine. In that facet, and ONLY in that facet, did he respect Maul.

And then there was Anamaria... She obviously saw in that horrible monster what Vespasian and Qui-Gon had tried to teach him. In fact, she was probably in there right now, doing what she did best. Obi-Wan smiled a bit. She was so gentle, and caring. A friend to every one of her fellow Padawans, and not a second too late to help another in need. It probably had a lot to do with her own childhood, raised with a cruel man who ran a prostitution ringand wouldn't have waited a beat to start her up in the business. She was lucky to have been found before he did.

Obi-Wan massaged his brow with the tips of his fingers, and his eyes moved to the small pack that lay adjacent to Anakin. He thought about compassionate Anamaria, trying her best to heal that cold, unfeeling monster of a Sith, with barely any medical knowledge aside from the obvious. He had more cognition than she...

But he wanted Darth Maul to die.

Wasn't Vespasian's last wish for you to take care of him?

He was being surrounded by a mob of cat-people...

He may be evil, but he's still human.

A vegetable. A drone for his master's wishes.

He saved Anamaria's life.

But he also nearly ended it.

He saved Anakin's, and yours as well.

And killed another in the process.

You know that Raphael would have been executed anyway.

His eyes opened. It was true. Darth Maul didn't deserve a free life, but he did deserve to live.

At least for the time being...

Obi-Wan set the steering for autopilot, and stood on numb legs. Anakin had barely stirred since last, and he quietly moved past the small boy to retrieve his own personal stash of emergency medicine. There was little he could do without professional equipment, but at least he could clean up after the foreseeable mess that was to come. He walked down the hall.

    The moment he placed his hand on the door, he could sense that something was wrong. The force was weak, and slow to appease his wishes. Something was pushing it down; creating a barrier. Obi-Wan pushed open the airtight vessel, and a strange, almost toxic odor met his nostrils. It was like musk, only richer, and difficult to describe. Anamaria sat in a high-backed seat at the side of a bloodstained bed, her eyes red, and a similarly bloodied cloth in her hand. She rocketed up like a flash as her higher entered the room, and almost burst out into tears again.

"He just started bleeding, and his fever shot up so high I can barely touch him, oh God Obi-Wan, please help him!" She pleaded in one breath. The Jedi was at her side in a flash, his tools at ready, and senses on full alert. Darth Maul, though he had thought was haggard when they had fought on Naboo, was now completely devoid of anything other than flesh, and bone. His auld eyes were half-lidded, dull from the sheer intensity of what sickness had plagued him, and a small stream of broken blood trickled from the corner of his dark lip. His breathing was frightening- a speeding up down pattern which barely gave enough oxygen to suffice for his lungs.

Obi-Wan cursed beneath his breath, and felt the multi-colored face which had haunted his dreams since last year. Indeed, the flesh was blistering hot, and the Sith groaned weakly at the intrusion of a cool touch. Obi-Wan immediately retracted his hand, not out of repulsion, but because it had nearly burned him.

"Anamaria," He turned to the girl, "Quickly, go to our ice stores, and fill a half-pound bag." At want to help, the padawan immediately raced out of the room. Kenobi tore through his pack like a madman, so caught up in the panic of the situation that he forgot who he was even healing. A thermometer lay in his bag somewhere, made of ultulium- an extremely rare metal, but equally accurate, and it would help him to determine what kind of a situation he was dealing with. He already had some sort of idea- poison, no doubt- of what was plaguing the Sith.

Grasping the trembling jaw with one hand, he pried open Darth Maul's mouth, and stuffed the thermometer underneath his tongue, shoving it closed in a matter of moments. His patient lay very still, barely breathing as blood began to trickle from the corners of his eyes. That was not good.

In thirty seconds, Obi-Wan pried open the reluctant jaw once more, and stared in horror at the completely accurate object in his hand.

It read 109.7.

Only poison could accomplish something like this, and there were only three that caused such dire symptoms, all of which (without the antidote) were fatal within a week's time

One: Tramica. A fine powder that could easily have been spiked into the Sith's food or drink.

Two: Hycathia Root. Liquid. Easy to detect, but devoid of cure. If this was what Maul was suffering, he would be dead in a few hours.

Three: Essence of Yorbitoc. Possibly the worst of the three. It caused spasmodic twitching, and hallucinations, but could only be absorbed through an open wound. If this was the case, then the Sith would die by literally burning from the inside out.

Obi-Wan immediately checked his body for any sort of discolored injuries; any kind of strange, or out-of-place bruise. Yorbitoc speeded the healing process by tenfold, so by now, the wound could have been a tiny scar, or a huge gash, depending on when it had been consumed.

Suddenly, Anamaria hurled herself through the threshold, and shoved the ice toward her friend, panting like a sweat-soaked horse. "Ice... half-pound... sorry took... so long..." She gasped between words. The Jedi nodded, and quickly placed the bag directly beside his patient's neck.

His neck...

He only now seemed to notice it. The long scar that ran from ear to ear, across his collar, signifying that at some point in time...

His throat had been slit...

No one survived a slit throat...

Unless Yorbitoc was involved.

Obi-Wan's eyes slanted in anger as realization took its full effect. Of course... Gattaca had been a supplier of Yorbic bulbs for centuries... Why didn't he notice it before?! Coruscant was still five days' going, and they had no antidote for such a horrendous poison. The Innuendo was running low on fuel... There was a dying Sith in his murdered friend's bedroom... Anamaria was close to a breakdown...

The Jedi stood, palm in forehead, as he tried to think of the best way to tell the young Padawan, who had just lost the only one she ver truly trusted, that Darth Maul was going to die in less than seventy-two hours.

"Marie..." He began, a waver in his voice, "I..."

Her eyes were hopeful. Bright with desperate innocence, wanting, needing... He couldn't.

"There is..." He hesitated, running three fingers across his face, and rubbing his neck, "I can't..."

There was no way to tell her. Not like this. Darth Maul was laying below him, suffocating in his own feverish heat, dying the worst death possible. He desperately thought of anything that they could use to stall the poison, but there was nothing. Nothing within help, and every planet they were passing could hardly be accountable for proper medical assistance.

"Marie..." He told her carefully, and quietly, "there is Yorbitoc in his body..."

She was silent, staring in puzzled hope, perhaps believing that Yorbitoc was some sort of cell that healed quickly, or natural medicine that fought off against infection.

"A poison..."

The hopeful glitter was still in her puritanic eyes.

"He is.... very sick..."

It faded...

"It is killing him... he'll be dead in less than seventy-two hours..." He finished in nothing more than a whisper.

Anamaria's glow dissolved into blank nothingness. She stood there for a long, long moment, the smile fading from her lips, her clasped hands loosening, the hope melting away into actualization. Her eyes begged Obi-Wan to tell her that he was wrong. A mistake. He was going to live. The Jedi answered with an icy stare. _Gattaca's poison..._

"No..." She whispered. Her eyes widened as realization took its full effect. _But he will not die..._

"No..." Her jaw trembled in shock. She saw Darth maul in that reeking pit with all of the others, with Raphael. She refused to believe it.

"No... He's strong... you... you don't know..." Her hands fell to her sides, and clenched sporadically. Obi-Wan shook his head in a barely distinguishable movement. "I'm sorry..." He mouthed.

"No! Please, you have to have something! Something, please! HELP HIM!!!" She was becoming hysterical. Obi-Wan did nothing. He watched the scene play with the familiar knot in the back of his throat as she raced the Sith's side, and cupped his face in her hands.

"Kalaskein, no! Don't do this! Wake up! OPEN YOUR EYES!!! PLEASE, KALASKEIN, OPEN YOUR EYES!!!" She screamed. Maul did not reply.

"Kalaskein... I'm Anamaria..." She spoke, near hysteria, "I'm Anamaria, remember? The Jedi... I owe you a life debt, don't you leave me here you ass! I'M RIGHT HERE, DON'T YOU DIE ON ME!!!" She gently slapped his cheek. The Sith made no movement. Tears welled up in the girl's eyes as she stood there, the realization of death fully upon her. The one she had come so close to knowing... he saved her life... he was dying...

"No..." Again, the word left her lips. She clutched Darth Maul's shoulders tightly, and pulled him into her arms. He was as limp as a rag doll, and made no resistance as she buried her head in his, and wept hysterically.

"NOOO!!!" She howled, muffling the words against his clean bedshirt.

Obi-Wan spared a few moments, standing where he had last, and watching them with calm apathy. He mused a little space, and turned on heel, shutting the door behind him as he retraced his steps to the cockpit. He could hear Anamaria's desperate wails behind him as each porthole revealed a little more of the black galaxy, and one more new star to look upon.

Anakin had not moved since the ordeal. He was still sound asleep, oblivious to the activity that had commenced only a few minutes ago. Obi-Wan lowered himself into his seat, memorizing every squeak, and groan it made as it supported his bulk, and sat there very stilly, staring at the many buttons that adorned his ship. One tear leaked from the corner of his eye, and had not left his cheek before it was heedlessly swept away.

Obi-Wan Kenobi, Jedi master, and caretaker of what could be considered the most powerful Padawan in history, grasped the manual controls for his beloved ship, and set them on the path for Coruscant.

* * *

A/N: Eh... 


	17. Yoda

1A/N: OKAY, I AM SERIOUSLY PISSED OFF!!! All of this freaking time spent hatching my ingenious ideas for Darth Maul, and his mysterious past, and family, and all that crap, and I GO TO THE STAR WARS WEBSITE AND FIND OUT THAT HE IS A WHAT?! A ZABRAK!!!! WHAT THE HELL IS A ZABRAK, AND WHERE THE HELL IS IRDONIA FOR CRIPE'S SAKE?!?! BECAUSE I SURE AS HELL DIDN'T SEE ANYTHING ABOUT A ZABRAK IN PTM!!! Huff Oh well. I don't give a damn. I'm just going to continue on with my obviously INFERIOR imaginative plot, and SCREW GEORGE LUCAS!!! SCREW YOU AND YOUR BLOODY PLANS FOR WORLD DOMINATION!!!

* * *

Er... did I say that out loud?

Chapter Seventeen

_Kalaskein..._

Blackness...

_Kalaskein..._

A voice...

_Kalaskein..._

Was he dead...?

_Kalaskein..._

Blurs... hazes...

_Wake, Kalaskein..._

A heavy shape... blackness...

_Awaken..._

He woke. There was nothing. Darkness.

"Who is here?" He said, stunned that his voice was in use again.

_I am._

"Who is he that names himself 'I Am'?" He questioned in a silky, gruff voice. His own voice.

_He who is all which has been, and will be is called I Am. _The strange voice replied.

Darth Maul, in realization, flung himself to his knees, only to realize that he was unable to move. He could not ascertain his place against this wonder that was speaking to him, and instead closed his eyes in recognition, stating the name, "Shiloh..."

_You have been broken, doer of evil. _

He said nothing.

_Sentenced, and persecuted as an evil, wretched creature should..._

"To deem thee as the greater good..." He replied in a small voice. Not his voice.

_No. You are unworthy. You are a sinner, and you have broken what edict I placed upon you at the moment of your birth. You have defiled it. You have suffocated it in your evil, and broken its pact with your soul. You do not deserve this._

Maul lowered his head in humiliated shame. "I have... I do not deserve such wonderful gifts if I may be swayed so easily by a promise of power... I deserve to be thrown into the deepest recesses of hell..." He paused, waiting.

_Kalaskein, though much of this was not yours to decide, you still continued to bask in its wicked rewards, and you ignored the commands I gave you. The power was not yours to hold. It was not something that could be squandered at ease, and yet you still did. _

"I am not worthy of this... I am not worthy of life..." He said, and his body fell to the nonexistent floor.

_You are broken, doer of evil. And you accept this. You are worthy of this love, and you will be remembered in Paradise. _

"Shiloh..." He choked, a tight knot forming in his throat, "I don't deserve life... I don't deserve your love..."

Suddenly, a cool wind brushed his face, and his head was lifted by an unseen force.

_You are broken, Kalaskein, and it is the humility in your heart that has accepted this. You are more than deserving of my love. There are great blessings in store for you, my son, and I will guide you to reap their utmost rewards. _

"Oh God..." He shuddered, barely able to release the words, "My father, my father, my father..." He chanted in a half-conscious mantra. He felt the strange, once dry well of emotion surge forth, and the onslaught frightened him slightly. He choked, and gasped as a black tear fell from the corner of his eye, and traced its way down his cheek in a sort of runic pattern.

Suddenly, it was as if everything had dissipated. He breathed in, and it felt as though an immeasurable burden had been lifted from his shoulders, like a dead man had been removed from his back. Life surged into his soul, and he could not help but cry even harder; for joy that it might last forever, and fear that it might disappear as quickly as it had come. He lifted his head to the empty sky, and wept to the heavens in triumph, his lips curving into an unfamiliar smile.

He was free! He was no longer evil!

He was no longer a Sith.

The moment that thought hit him, he was overcome by a wave of exhaustion so intense it almost hurt. Wait... it did hurt. It hurt a lot. Why was he in pain? Ahh... Dizziness overtook his head, and everything fogged over.

No, no... not this... not this again...

"Ngh... No... NO... NOOOO-"

Maul's eyes shot open, and his back arched in such a way that his spine should have snapped in half. He fell back immediately, met with the hazed, confusing images of people standing over him. He rasped painfully, eagerly gasping as though he had not breathed in ages.

"Marieeee..." He managed to ground out before something fell over his mouth, and he lost consciousness.

* * *

When Maul awoke next, the experience was much less painful. The lights were out, and his body no longer screamed, but a dull ache invaded his limbs. There was a soft snoring beside him, and, with great difficulty, he managed to turn his heavily bandaged neck toward the source of the noise.

Anamaria lay sprawled over a couch. Her hair was a mess, her skin was pale, and there were dark rings beneath her eyes. He stared at her for several minutes, watching her small breastbone move up and down to the rhythm of her breathing. He could really do nothing else.

What happened...? Where was he? Why could he remember nothing?

A soft whirr shot by his ear, and the noise startled him. Maul turned again, this time facing the window, and saw what could only be categorized as city lights shining through the thin drapes. Then that meant... he was in a hospital... alive.

On Coruscant.

With Jedi.

A wave of intense fear washed over him, and his senses rocketed tenfold. He needed to leave... not because he was afraid of imprisonment, but for the safety of the girl laying not eight feet away from him.

Testing his fingers, the Sith found that they were numb, and sluggish, slow to appease his wishes. With difficulty, he managed to move his hands behind his back, and immediately hissed in pain, for the movement had caused muscle spasms in his still-healing tissue. Raphael must have cut deeper than he'd thought...

Slowly, much more slowly than the Sith had preferred, he pushed himself up into a half-siting position, and stopped, his face caught in a grimace of intense pain. What a treacherous body he had been cursed with! Sweat beaded his gaunt face, trickling annoyingly down his neck, and back, and the heat he had felt in the spaceship was returning. A this rate, he would be tried and executed before he even managed to get his feet on the ground.

Something slowly clicked in Maul's considerably dulled mind, and he felt his skin prickle with the presence of a powerful entity.

Yoda.

Now his mind was on red alert. The Sith's heart began racing with adrenaline, and he rapidly looked around the room for any sort of escape route. Only the window lay within his view.

Anamria snorted softly, and turned on her side.

Maul hurriedly sat up, grunting slightly in pain as his torn stomach was disturbed by the movement. His eyes were wide with fear, and his heavy limbs trembled as he forced them to move against their will. The leg that had been broken back on Gattaca was thickly wrapped up to his thigh, and he was unable to move it but a few inches.

The Sith stood with every ounce of strength he could muster, driven by an ungodly amount of willpower, his face scrunched up in pain and concentration. The moment he was standing on his own, he would have collapsed beneath his own weight had it not been for the conveniently placed balustrade near the edge of his cot. Standing very awkwardly, he gasped, panting in exhaustion, and angrily chastised himself for being so weak.

The force was growing stronger by the moment, and Maul hurriedly swallowed back the bile threatening to spew forth from his empty stomach. Sucking in a breath, he pushed himself from the balustrade, and fell against the wall with a small cry of pain. Afraid that he had awoken Anamaria by the noise, the injured warrior quickly glanced over his shoulder to find that the girl was, indeed, still asleep; snoring away her woes and worries.

Maul ran his swollen tongue across his dry, chapped lips, and, assured that Anamaria was not going to wake up, he began to inch his way across the wall, leaning heavily against its comfortably cool support. The going was slow; he had to take small steps, as the pain in his leg was so acute that he could barely place two pounds upon it without holding back a scream. Thankfully, the window was not that far from his small, white bed, and he was there in less than a minute.

_Oh no._ _Oh no..._

Looking outside, Maul was horrified to discover that he was exactly one-hundred-and-fifty stories above the small line of ground below him, where the tiny dots he could only assume were people moved about on the minuscule street. Speeders, and pods rushed by his soundproof window, moving much too fast to even dream about catching a lift from one.

Frustrated, angry, and scared, the Sith lifted a bandaged hand, and slammed his balled-up fist into the glass, pressing his burning forehead against the cool pane. It gave him no relief.

"Judge us so quickly you must not, Sith."

Maul didn't even attempt to turn around. He could hear the soft tap, tap, tap of Yoda's cane as he stepped into the hospital room, and felt the nine-hundred-year-old force that surrounded him. His yellow eyes closed, and he waited patiently for the guards to enter and seize him.

"Impatient I have been to see you finally, Darth Kalaskein." The small alien continued, "Much pondering I have done since the first hearing of your visit, hm. Much pondering, indeed."

Maul glued his eyes to the floor.

"No need to be angry there is. Come here only to talk I have, Darth Kalaskein, hm."

* * *

A/N: Ha! There you go! Two installments instead of one! I understand that the bit at the beginning was a little unexpected, with Darth Maul believing in God and everything, but I can assure you that his change from secondary evil to good will be extended into several chapters. He's forgotten about the meeting with the 'voice' already, but there will be others around him to refresh his memory, including a VERY happy Anamaria, who will tell us exactly how he survived that little escapade in the spaceship. A lot more drama will ensue as the order eventually finds out about their newest guest, and Mace Windu takes Obi-Wan's place as 'hater of the week'! Geez, I really feel like my chapters are coming out crappier and crappier every time... Oh well. Send me your feedback! 


	18. And the cookie crumbles

A/N: 'Lo again! Nosta-Logic here with chapter eighteen of this pathetically anal story, and many excuses as to why I have not updated in, like, one-thousand years. One: Finals. No explanations needed. Two: I left for the better part of Christmas vacation to head on down to Juarez, Mexico for a mission trip with my lovely friend, Guardian-Angel-07, who also writes on you're a fan of Harry Potter, like myself, you may just want to take a look at her newest fanfiction, and leave her a heartwarming review! Three: If my computer was human, it would be retarded. Really F.U.B.A.R. Anyway, I'm sure you've all had enough of my non-con running mouth, so here's the latest installation of My Lonely!

Chapter Eighteen:

* * *

"No need to be angry there is. Come here only to talk I have, Darth Kalskein, hm." Yoda said in his froglike voice. Maul closed his eyes respectively, trying to find the strength to speak.

"There is... nothing to talk about..." He rasped, voice barely usable after being slit. He closed his eyes, and grimaced in pain. Those were the first words he'd spoken in a long time.

Yoda said nothing for a long moment, but the Sith could hear his noisy shuffling as he drew closer to the window.

"Angry you are with yourself. Angry you are with us. Scared you are to trust." The small alien tapped his cane once on the ground, and stared wisely into Maul's gaunt, haggard face. The Sith could do nothing. He could say nothing. He could only stand there like an idiot, unable to meet the gaze of his master's arch nemesis, trembling like some weak little child. Speeders whizzed by his window, every one of them occupied by some person who had it off better than he did right now. Silently, he imagined that he was one of those people, going home to a family, starting the late shift at their job, heading off to the bar...

"Thrown into jail you will not be, Sith. Only one who knows of your arrival I am, and keep you safe we will, hm." The jedi master nodded as if agreeing with himself. Maul continued to stare out the window, his lips set in a thin line, and his eyes emotionless. He didn't want to talk. He wanted to drown in self-pity. He was tired of people using him like some worthless toy and pretending to care about him when all they were doing was weakening his walls. He was tired.

So tired...

The hand upon the window clenched. Maul could not have been more frustrated, and confused. The frighteningly new feelings plaguing him with awful memories... everything he had ever been... everything he had lived to become... his life...

It was all a lie...

Sidious was not his mentor anymore. Sidious had erased everything, and replaced it with false memories. Sidious had trained him, worked him, hit him, told him how worthless he was, and could amount to nothing. And to counter everything he had done to hurt Maul, he said that the Jedi were ten times worse. The Jedi were senseless pigs, sitting on their royal thrones with upturned chins and fleeing at the first sign of danger. The Jedi were arrogant, uncaring; the commonwealth were like dogs to them. The Jedi would not wait a moment before they saw an evil put to death, and yet here he was... cared for in the most gentle of mannerisms... the girl he had tried to shun that lonely night as he sat cold, broken, and hopeless in his cell... she lay sleeping not ten feet from him.

"How long... have I been here?" Maul whispered without looking at Yoda. The hand was now clenched skintight.

"Three days now." The master replied calmly, also sparing a glance at his counterpart. "Unsuccessful the doctors have been in beginning the treatment to your leg, hm. Flush the remainder of poison from your body they must. Gives numbness to the pain it causes with the medicines, yes." He paused to look at the Sith with his old eyes.

"In pain you are."

Maul did not respond. He knew that Yoda was referring not only to his physical pain, but his mental pain as well, and it bothered him that the Jedi was reading him like an open book. Naturally, he upped his defenses and struggled to stand up straight, but the movement did not bear well with his back, and he only ended up agonizing himself further.

Dear God, three minutes on his feet, and he was already prepared to pass out.

Yoda said nothing more. His green eyes moved to the bustle outside, and watched intently, as if the conversation they had just shared never happened. Maul imagined Anamaria waking up from her peaceful slumber (Lord knew she needed it), and finding the two greatest enemies to ever walk the galaxy side-by-side; one leaning against the wall like a drunken idiot, and a midget jedi master staring out the window like a turkey in the rain.

What a laugh.

The Sith knew what she would do. First, she'd stare at them for about two minutes, debating whether or not they were communicating telepathically, then she'd clear her throat once. Twice. Then, when the maternal worry set in, she'd ask in that damnably soft voice of hers why he'd gotten out of bed, look at Yoda, and, to attempt conversation, greet him honorably, come stand next to them, and suggest that Maul return to his uncomfortable (though tolerable) hospital bed. When he wouldn't answer, she'd put her hand on his (and he had just realized this) topless shoulder, he'd get those strange chills, and, like a dog to the master, he'd follow her off to his cot.

Why?

Why did he allow himself to be controlled by a little girl, the likes of which he could easily destroy without having to use an ounce of the force? Why did he enjoy it when she ran her fingers across his ebony flesh? Why did she have a power over him that dominated even his own master's?

"Kalaskein? Master Yoda?"

_Oh boy._

She had awoken.

"Kalaskein... y-you're awake already...!"

He winced. Yep those drugs would be wearing off right about now.

"The doctors said you wouldn't be up for another two days..."

What the hell did she expect?! Living a life of luxury was not his forte after being subjected to enough butt-rape to put even Jabba the Hutt to shame! It was only natural that his reactive thought process kicked in early after being tortured for so long.

Yoda chuckled softly.

"You should rest... they haven't been able to remove the poison from your body yet..."

He could hear her come up close to him, and he fought with every fibre of every molecule of strength he had left to abstain the trembling in his legs.

Or... at least the one that worked.

"Whelp, I-" His angry retort was cut off by a violent wave of pain that ripped through his back like a thousand-degree sword. Before he knew it, his grip on the window had ceased, and he was sinking to the floor in a shivering,bleedingmess. He tried hard to refrain from screaming, he really did, but the pain was nearly unbearable, and he could not restrain the shuddering gasp that tore from his lips.

_What the hell was going on?_

"Kalaskein!" Anamaria rushed to his side immediately, but Yoda did not seem surprised at all.

Maul's bandaged hands struggled to claw into the wall, but to no avail. His arms spasmed, and shook like leaflets in a hurricane, and he found that it was becoming increasingly difficult to see through such blistering hot agony.

"Hlp..." He whimpered like a lost child.

Such... _pain_. So excruciating, he could control nothing. It tore at his mind, ripped at his body; he forgot everything. Knew nothing but this agony that fed upon his being like a vulture to a carcass, and, like the carcass, he could do nothing to stop it. Nothing but give in. So he did. He let it envelope his mind in white, screaming, hot. There was nothing left anymore. No time, no place, nobody, no thought. No relief. Only laughter. Hardmockingviciouslaughter.

Who was he?

Then dark.

* * *

A/N: God, my savior, I appeal to you in this time of need, upon which if this fandom be of any disappointment to these humble reviewers, that you give them the peace they desire to restrain their homicidal tendencies, and to not KILL, MURDER, OBLITERATE ME!

...um... amen.

I SWEAR THAT THE NEXT CHAPTER WILL BE HERE BEFORE THE END OF FEBRUARY, AND **YOU WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED.**


	19. The Talk

A/N: Whoa! This one came out pretty fast, eh?

Chapter nineteen:

* * *

Pain, breathtaking, suffering

_stop._

What the hell...?

**Hello, apprentice...**

Master? You are alive?

**Indeed. As are you... this is a welcome turn of events...**

Where are you?

**I am nowhere.**

... I see.

**I am surprised that you are well. **

I am not.

**Then you are alive. I was concerned that you had succumbed to Queen Shegorad's inquisition.**

My lord?

**You are of no use to me dead, apprentice. **

Of course, master. You are unhurt?

_This was all just a game..._

**Yes.**

Then you will return to the city?

_He knew._

**Reveal to me your location, and I shall retrieve you as well. **

This is not wise, my lord.

**You have no dominance over my decisions, apprentice.**

_He knew all along._

I do.

_He knew the truth._

**Are you challenging my authority?**

_And he lied._

I am not returning to the city. I am not returning to your ideals. I have my own now.

**Your ideals are simplistic, and childish. You are not worth the energy it would take to destroy!**

But I am worth the price of freedom.

**You have been corrupted! **

Corrupted by myself?! It is you who is corrupted!

**You... You are among the enemy... They have splintered your mind! They want to destroy you when you give yourself to them!!!**

Splintered... No. If anything, I have been repaired!

**By the Jedi... you are a weak-minded fool. How many broken promises have they made? How many will they make before you realize this?**

They care for me.

**No, apprentice... I have cared for you. Care is the only thing that I have ever shown you. They are deceivers. They will lure you to their circle like a lamprey to the minnow, and they will kill you.**

Care...? Care by making my whole life a lie?! By tearing out every memory I ever had, and replacing them with falsities?! YOU ARE A LIAR!!!

**Because if you had known the truth, you would have killed yourself. I did not tear out your memories. They were always there. Did you not realize this as they were piqued by the images you witnessed on Gattaca? Is this not care? **

You destroyed me. You broke me, and falsified my very existence!

**If only to make you stronger, my apprentice. If I had not, would you have survived a night on Gattaca? Would you have withstood Shegorad's wrath? Is this not care as well?**

You... you forced me to kill innocent children! You forced me to kill those who did not deserve to die!

**The spawn of the enemy. If you had not killed them, they would have grown in but a few years to young men, and do you think that they would have wasted a second to kill you?**

You forced me to commit heinous crimes that even lords of the artdared not speak of...

**But without reason?**

I... Anamaria... cares for me...

**But for how long? Did she not just allow you to rot in your prison cell? Was it not _you_ who saved _her_? Did she not abandon you to wallow in her own emotions while the oaf Jedi friend of hers nearly killed you? Her care is merely an act. She will destroy you in the end. **

No...

**I am the only one who will ever truly care for you.**

**Return to your real home with me, my apprentice. Come with me, and I shall always know you as my own son. **

Your... son...?

_On this quiet, misty morning_

**Have I not always? You are the son I never had. Come home with me.**

_When the moon lays down her head_

Home...?

_As the sparrows start their singing_

**Home. We are our own family. We have always been.**

_Family...?_

_I'll be homeward bound again..._

_Home._

_Family._

_Ana..._

NOOOOO!!!!!

**Apprentice?!**

LIAR!!! YOU BASTARD!!!! HOW **DARE** YOU DECEIVE ME IN SUCH A WAY!!!

**Fool! You are worthless!**

LIKE HELL I AM!!!! I WILL NEVER BE WHO YOU ARE!!!! YOU WILL NEVER HAVE ME!!!

**So you finally see...**

I resign from my title as **your** apprentice...

**Your eyes...**

What...?

**You have told me many a tale with those eyes... I should very well enjoy having them...**

You're mad...

**Am I? **

You will profit from nothing upon me!

**Oh yes I will!!!**

WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!

**HAHAHAHA!!! WE'LL SEE HOW YOU FARE WITHOUT YOUR GREATEST WEAPON!!!**

_The pain..._

**SUFFER IN HELL, DARTH KALASKEIN!!!**

_The laughter..._

_Help me..._

* * *

A/N: Okay, REALLY sloppy one right here. I hope no one's confused. They were talking telepathically, hence the blackout in the previous chapter.Some questions will be answered in the next installment, but we'll just wait. A lot of you may think that the argument between Sidious and Maul was not very convincing, but let's remember that pookie-wookie sith has rarely experienced any emotion besides apathy, anger, and angst. Hehe... alliteration... yummy... ANYWAY, though I realize Sidious is completely out of character, and my writing skills aren't worth the price of the bullets it would take to shoot them, I have tried my best to capture this lovely moment within the three hours it took to write it. 


	20. He Took Them Back

A/N: Well, here we go again.

Chapter Twenty:

* * *

His body was not the thing that hurt this time. It was not his leg, nor his chest, or even his back. This wound was new. He had never experienced anything of its like, and thought alone made him sick with regret.

It was his heart.

Ripped from his chest, shot one-thousand times over, stomped, beaten, burned, torn to minuscule pieces, and then some. The feeling of repulsion. The feeling that he had just denied the only home he ever knew. Knowing now that could never belong in light, or dark.

His face...

His face was the only thing that did not contradict everything that he ever was, or would become. His face meant the unification of love, and hate. Good and evil. Right and wrong. Red and black. He was none of these things. He was neither a lover, or a hater. A good, or an evil. A right, or a wrong. He was gray. The darker shade of gray. Just another face in the crowd.

Surely... surely no one cared for another face. They were just too common to be cared for.

Maul felt as though he had been broken apart, and put back together the wrong way.

Something twinged, and he winced impulsively, though the feeling of pain was welcome. He knew pain. It was something that he could always count on to be there, even if others were not.

"Oh, sorry..." Came the apologetic whisper.

Maul, unable to decipher whether or not he was still unconscious, carefully moved his hands. They were no longer numb, but rather sore. He could feel fabric beneath his fingers; warm and inviting, but it took his sluggish mind a few moments to register that he was no longer lying on a hospital bed.

Breathing in slowly, he found that everything about him was still aching; from his feet to his head, and he could no longer find the strength to fight it. His last reserves were gone, and frankly, he was not disappointed. All he wanted to do was lie in a dark corner, and die. Nevertheless...

He painstakingly forced his eyes to open a sliver.

Darkness. The lights were out. He breathed.

"You gave us all a good scare, you know."

Anamaria. Simplistic. Naive as ever. He did not respond to her. It was impossible. Despite the fact that he would have killed himself at a moment's notice, he humored her, and continued forcing himself to breathe.

Her hand touched his jawline. "I'm sorry if you are in any pain..." Her voice, so soft... "They had to allow the medicines to flush from your body..."

Slowly, his lips parted. He forced his throat to work; vocal cords protesting against the abuse.

"Where..." It was no louder than a whispered breath.

"They let you sign out of the hospital. You're in my flat, next to the Jedi headquarters." She answered softly.

Silence. He could not speak for a moment.

"Do you feel like you can eat something?"

Carefully, and so carefully that the movement took no less than seven seconds to accomplish, he moved his head down once. Anamaria's weight lifted from the bedside, and he was left in the dark while something bubbled in what he assumed to be the kitchen.

With patience unusual for his character, Maul moved each part of his body to ascertain whether or not all of his limbs remained intact as he waited for the girl's cooking to cease. All arms and legs seemed to be in order, with the exception of the one that remained immobile in a plaster cast. He could only assume that this would cause him a great deal of trouble when he was up and walking again.

_If_ he was up and walking again.

Briefly, the Sith wondered what would become of his life from now on. The link between good and evil had been severed, and he was a nomad, wandering the paths rarely known to any creature. Perhaps he might settle down on a deserted planet, light-years away from any other living organism, unable to further instigate a sense of obligatory confinement. Or, he could go with his first plan, and die in a small corner.

The further sounded much more realistic than the latter.

Sounds in the kitchen ceased suddenly, and he heard Anamaria's light steps echo throughout the room. Strange... he saw no light from the hallway. Perhaps it was night.

No noncommital sound left his lips this time as she put her hand beneath his neck, and propped him up on numerous pillows. He neither had the strength, nor the will to oppose her.

"There." She put her hand on his shoulder, and squeezed it gently. A movement so small; so insignificant, yet... so complex. Her touch contained a strange, euphoric healing sense that soothed him in more places than she knew. His heart ached and hurt, but the unification between flesh, and flesh was enough to comfort the near-lifeless organ, even for a moment.

Maul suddenly felt a compulsive need to see her face.

Dragging in a gravelly breath, he forced the words from his dry lips.

"'S.... dark... n'to... the lights..."

The effort had left him totaled, and he had to stop to calm his racing lungs. Anamria seemed confused.

"The lights?"

Again, with bone-crunching effort, he nodded, and paused. This was too much to handle in such little time.

"You want the lights... on....?"

_Dammit, woman!_ He gritted his teeth, and hissed in exasperation. His body was beginning to calm, though.

"Y-Yes..." His voice was barely above a whisper. Good Lord, the effort he put into requesting for a menial task like that! There was silence for a long moment.

"Kalaskein..." She began slowly. He paused, nearly dead with impatience.

"The lights _are _on."

Quiet.

Dead. Quiet.

Not one thing in that room moved for ten minutes. No one dared to breathe louder than absolutely necessary, and even the strongest of men could not withstand the unparalleled silence that plagued it like a malignant disease.

"He... took... them back..." Maul finally whispered.

"Oh, Kalaskein..." Anamaria said mournfully. Her eyes were filled with tears.

"Y-You... did e-every...thing... you could... I.... I understand..." Something clogged his throat.

"We should have done more..." She replied.

"It is... nothing... a... asmall price..." His voice shook.

"Does anything hurt?"

Slowly, an undefined movement, he shook his head no.

"Are you hungry?"

"A... little..."

A sad smile drew on Anamaria's lips. "Do you like chicken noodle? It's good for the immune system..."

Maul was not looking at her. "It... doesn't matter..."

The young padawan lifted the steaming bowl into her lap, and began to feed him. Slowly. One spoonful at a time. He did not struggle, but emotionlessly allowed her to serve him without a fuss. Soon, however, his eyes overflowed with tears, and he began to cry.

"Oh, Kalaskein..." Anamaria said, putting the bowl down. She sat down at the edge of the bed, and drew his bony frame into her arms as he wept dead black tears against her shoulder.

"P-pathetic-"

"No, you aren't..."

Clinging to her like a lost child, he shook and sobbed. "Bastard... bastard... I g-gave... him... everything..."

"You didn't give him your heart..."

"I d-don't... have one..."

"Shh..." Anamaria rocked him gently, and held him there for what seemed like hours. Finally, he calmed. The pain, and the physical exuberance were exhausting his weak body. She laid him softly upon the pillows once more.

"We'll get through this." She told him as his swollen eyes drifted shut. "If I have to relinquish my title as a Jedi... then so be it."

It was all he heard before he fell into unconsciousness.

* * *

A/N: WOOT!!! I AM SIXTEEN!!! FEAR ME, AND REVIEW THIS STORY, OR I SHALL EAT YOUR UNBORN FETUSES!!! RAHWR!!!!

Good Lord, this had to be the worst chapter I've ever written.

Excerpts of the above conversation were borrowed from Logospilgrim, the best freakin Snape-angst fic writer I have ever had the privilege to kiss the feet of.


	21. Mine, All Mine

A/N: w00t!

Chapter Twenty-One:

Time passed, and gradually, Maul's strength returned. He spoke very little of his new deficiency, but retained his contentious disposition as soon as he was able. Insisting on being allowed a chance to walk, and stand out on the balcony was something he requested at every available moment, even though his body was far from ready to do so. Anamaria good-naturedly refused him this simple want.

"It's still winter. You'll catch cold. If you were spotted by a Jedi, all hell would break loose. You need to wait for your leg to heal. If you tried to move too much, your stitches would come apart." Were just a few of the excuses she laid on thickly as he grew more cantankerous each day.

Most of the Order had since heard of Vespasian's untimely death by this point in time. Yoda had quickly slapped up a story worthy of a Nobel prize, explaining that he had died valiantly, trying to protect his padawan and fellow shipmates; and with so much detail did he recount the tragedy that no one questioned the fact that Anamaria had survived Raphael's horrifying dungeons without help. Likewise, Shegorad had been quickly dealt with. This was completely true. The vicious woman had been towed off to a secure prison, awaiting an obvious death sentence. No one denied that the story was real.

Nevertheless, Anamaria knew that her secret would not be spared for long. Once Maul was able to properly get himself around, he would have to face the Jedi council for interrogation. The girl hoped beyond hope that, despite his midoings in the past, his selfless forfeiture would counter the blood and sin. It was unheard of for a Sith to do such an altruistic deed, and it just might have been enough to spare him exile.

Finally, three months after escaping his compact hell, Maul's three-hundred-odd stitches were removed one by one. Anamaria herself was the one who took them out. She smiled as she did so, certain that her friend would no longer be so lenient when it came to her refusing him the dignity of walking by himself. On the contrary, she was quite prepared to let him do so, but not without her help.

"You're taking out my stitches," He growled indignantly as she pulled, "Not ripping the lid off a damn pickle jar..."

Anamaria bit her lip momentarily as all of her concentration was limited to removing the white thread weaving in and out of his black flesh. His thin body rocked slightly with each tug of her careful hands, and he remained patiently sitting, despite her gawky attempts at such a professional task.

"Sorry..." She muttered as the last one slid out gracefully, "I've not had much experience with medical procedures."

Maul turned slightly to where her voice had come from, and his nonexistent brows knotted together slightly.

"That much," He said, "is obvious."

For one moment, Anamaria was glad that he could not see his body. Scars littered his velvet flesh in spaces of no less than two inches apart, covering every portion of his body that would be covered, thankfully, by clothing. She took his clawed hand in her own, and laid it upon a pile of laundry.

"Do you need help dressing?"

A cold scowl at the lamp two feet next to her was the apparent answer.

Anamaria conceded, and left the room, standing outside the doorway to brood.

They really had come so far. Four months ago, he was an unrecognizable mass of multi-colored flesh and bone, barely able to defend himself from a dandelion seed, and now he was gaining his fit appearance back (not to mention a rather handsome one), and nearly at a clean bill of health. He could do everything he could before Gattaca, except walk, as his leg was still healing from the abuse it took.

She smiled. There was an unopened package on her kitchen table. Without even thinking, her fingers were skimming the rustic brown wrapping paper, knowing already who had sent it. For that, she was glad. It was considered a definite bonus when Master Yoda was on your side of the playing field.

The package he had sent was long; carefully stuck together in way that only a professional could have accomplished. There was a memory disc lying beside it.

Anamaria removed her holographic indicator, and set the cylindrical object at its base. The screen came to life in a projector, and she proceeded to read the note which had been left there. To her shock, however, it had not been left by master Yoda.

"Heard the story, and knew something was up..." She read softly, "Forced the info out of Obi-Wan after threatening to tell Mace that he'd been going to bars on weekends... Almost didn't believe it until I saw Shegorad's trial last month... so sorry to hear about Vespasian..." Anamaria stopped momentarily to smile. She knew where this was going. "Don't worry about anything... Sha and I haven't told anyone, and we support you all the way... The present's for your roommate... hope you'll come to see us soon...

"With every scrap of love we possess: Ginsa and Shaeden."

The screen faded out. Anamaria put her head on the table, and stifled a fit of laughing. Of course they would have found out. When did they NOT know everything about her?

Ginsa and Shaeden: Two fellow Padawans, and her friends throughout many trying years. Ginsa was a well-built girl, with a temper as volatile, and red as her hair. She was two years older than Anamaria, and nearly ready to participate in the trying exam which would decide her fate as a Jedi.

Shaeden was a quiet, brooding boy with eyes almost as intense as Maul's. He, too, had lost his Master earlier on in training, after trying to take down a band of rogue raiders on Tatooine. They had tortured both of them, and the seventeen-year-old never once spoke about his encounter on the lone desert planet, though he did bear a rather large scar across his pale face.

Anamaria sighed, and touched the package again. It was Maul's, but why would he care if she opened it? He wouldn't even be able to see it.

Lazily, she blinked her eyes, and the force began to unravel the taped brown paper like invisible fingers. At the end there was a small portion of what looked like silver plating, shimmering decisively against the stark fluorescent white of her kitchen. The paper continued to lift, and tear at various intervals, revealing more and more of what seemed to be a stick of sorts. Curious, the girl abandoned the quality with which she had since opened the package with, and opened it with her own hands.

She smiled.

* * *

Darth Maul sat in a transfixed musing, quietly striving to conclude what he had decidedly avoided since the beginning of his long recovery. Since he had allowed himself to be touched by caring hands for the first time in his life. Since he discovered that he was capable of feeling...

And he could not see her anymore.

Sidious had taken what he knew would eventually drive his _apprentice _into madness. He had taken his eyes- his outlets... his voice. Those two orbs which he had depended upon for so long to express what he was feeling.

If ever there was a definition for irony, that would be it.

Anamaria entered the guest room with her comrade's present, still smiling with happiness. She couldn't wait to see his reaction when he finally realized what it was.

"Kalaskein?" She stood in the doorway. He did not acknowledge her presence.

The girl stood silently, waiting to see if he even noticed she was there. He didn't. He just sat very still on the edge of the bed, his back to her; so quiet and motionless that he resembled nothing more than a bizarre lawn ornament.

"Kalaskein?" She tried again. This time, he made a small movement, and lifted his head somewhat. Anamaria went beside him.

"Look. Somebody left you a get-well-soon present." His brows knotted together in confusion, but before he could voice any sort of resentment, she took his slender wrist and laid it gently on the welcoming gift.

Maul did not move for a moment. His eyes tried to focus on where his hand lay, but he could not see it, and it frustrated him.

"What is it...?" He asked quietly, trying to keep his voice even.

"Don't try to picture something by the way someone else describes it." The girl answered simply. She took his hand, and ran it over the smooth edge.

"Feel."

Maul's face softened slightly, and slight stress lines appeared on his forehead as his hand continued moving over the strange cylindrical object. A round, welded metal tip met at the bottom, and he wondered briefly if they had sent him a giant toothpick just to spite him.

'No...' he told himself quickly, 'if it was, then she wouldn't have given it to me.'

Again, his hand traveled up the length of the gift, trying to picture it in his mind's eye. He saw a stick. He saw a mahogany stick with a silver metal plate at the very end, and felt reliefs in the neck as his fingers brushed its dipping edge. When he got to the top, he felt more cold silver, and his fingers twitched momentarily at the sudden change in temperature.

The head was rotund. It peaked suddenly at different intervals, and felt sharp in some places. There were many depressions in its design, all of them leading to a thin pit that cascaded directly up onto another smooth plate... like... like...

Petals...

His hand moved to the central core, and he felt the tinier pieces of the flower connecting into the deepest depression yet, and he knew at that moment that what he was feeling was a rose.

A rose he had seen once in his life, on Dagobah in a marsh pit somewhere near one of the deadlier regions of the planet. It was just sitting there, wedged between several rocks, and rising to the murky sky in ruby ecstacy. Roses were terribly rare. They were rumored to grow only on one planet in a galaxy far, far away, and it was unheard of for such a divine flower to enter the path of a wandering traveler. Maul was in shock that such beauty could flourish in such desolate, wasteful ugliness, much less survive between a couple of rocks, and he swore he stared at it for five hours straight, memorizing every detail of its velvet petals.

"I don't remember her face much." He said very quietly. Anamaria's stare bored through the permanent darkness.

"But... I always imagined that it was as soft as a rose... velveteen..." His elegant hand closed around the head of his new walking stick.

He smiled.

"Sort of like you."

They sat there in silence for a long time. Thought-provoking quiet blanketed the room like an unseen censer, breathing a noise with a calm that was unfamiliar to both of them. It ended when the Sith; sightless, yet with the vision of a reborn life that was his to master alone, stood and took his first rejuvenated steps to a balcony he would never see in his life. Something of an ethic that he had created himself; the pride of knowing his this darkness was his, and something that he would treasure for the rest of his days.

He smiled then, and didn't stop smiling until Anamaria took hold of his arm, and asked if he needed a doctor.

* * *

A/N: Hm. I figured I'd end the entire story here, and leave you guys to formulate your own plots for what happens next. Meh. Depends on what everyone thinks. DAMN YOU, REVIEW ME, AND GO LOOK AT MY HOMEPAGE ON MY USER PAGE!

Also: DarthRokdhotnez- Yes, I understand that Darth maul is not a Quinya, but I had assumed that the people at Star Wars were too lazy to actually make a backround for him, so I made my own. It wasn't until later, though, when I actually went to the website, that I discovered he was a Zabrak. ; Silly me.

GOODBYE ALL! MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU!


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